Hot Dogs and Rice

This is (inspired by) something my boyfriend's mom makes.  It's traditionally made with ketchup and onions but I think that's gross so I just use garlic and barbecue sauce.  I usually make it for lunch or as a snack.  This recipe is for 2 servings.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
6 hotdogs*, sliced
2-3 tablespoons of barbecue sauce

Directions:
Heat the oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and let it cook for about 1 minute.  Add the hotdogs and let cook, stirring occasionally, for about 8-10 minutes or until done.  You'll know they are done when they are heated thoroughly and start to get dark and curl up, like this:

Now add the barbecue sauce and stir it up until the oil and sauce are thoroughly combined.  Serve immediately over white rice.

Note:  This might not be very good in a bento as it tastes best when it's hot.  It keeps well and tastes fine reheated though.  It could probably last up to 3 days in the refrigerator but I've never had it stick around long enough to find out (it usually gets eaten up within the day it's made.)

*For a vegetarian option, you could maybe use some type of veggie dog. I've never tried it so I can't say I recommend it. I've only ever had Smart Dog brand, which tend to have a very subtle flavor that i imagine would get overpowered by the strong flavor of the barbecue sauce. Also I feel the texture/consistency would not lend itself well to browning properly.  For those two reasons I don't think a vegetarian version of this dish would be very palatable. If I ever get a chance to experiment with it I will post my results.  Until then, heed my warning: it might be gross.

Dad Food

Long time no blog!  I've been in Tulsa without a kitchen so I haven't been able to cook anything outside of a microwave.  This is the second day I've made lunch for a parent... yesterday I made inarizushi, cold soba noodles, and a green salad for my mom and dad.  Nothing spectacular or worth blogging about, just a random assortment of things i found in the pantry/fridge.  Today's lunch is just for my dad, since my mom told me she had tuna salad to eat.  This is what I made:

Carrots and homegrown green beans sauteed in ponzu, sesame oil, and a splash of rice vinegar. 

 My dad told me he loves raw tofu with just ponzu sauce, so i made that and added some sesame seeds for garnish.

 this bottle was full when i left for Tulsa.. I guess people have been using it!!

 Bento was looking a little plain so I decorated with some leftover cupcake picks from a Peter Rabbit cupcake decorating kit.  In the top right corner is a couple slices of my dad's favorite bread.

 This is my dad's favorite bread.  It is from Kroger.

...And I made a special treat for me to enjoy while I do the dishes ;)

it's salted caramel flavored whiskey from a distillery in Gatlinburg, TN, mixed with plain almond milk.  It kind of tastes like a white russian but with caramel instead of coffee flavor.

Not sure what I'm going to be making tomorrow yet, but I'll have more time and i'll be cooking for both of my parents again, so I'll try to include something recipe-worthy.

Red Snapper, Fudge, Tea Eggs

Wednesday Bento

I had kind of a bad day, so I'll just go straight to the recipes.

Poached Red Snapper

1 shallot, minced

1 tablespoon of butter

3 cups of Pinot Grigio or other white wine

2 small fillets of red snapper or other fish

salt to taste

Melt butter in large, shallow sauce pan.  Sautee shallots until clear.  Stir in pinot grigio.  Add salt and bring to a simmer.  Let it do its thing for a few minutes before adding the fish in.  Meanwhile, put the kettle on.  When the wine has started to lose some of its alcoholic flavor, add in the fish and pour boiling water into the pan until the fish is completely submerged.  Cover the pan and let the fish cook in the water/wine mixture for about 6-7 minutes, until fish is flaky but not tough.  When fish is fully cooked, remove from pan.  Discard poaching liquid and add a tbs of olive oil to pan.  Put the fish back in the pan over med-high heat for a minute or two to let the skins crisp up.  Let cool before putting it in your bento.

Tea Eggs

2-4 hardboiled eggs

1/4 c soy sauce

1 tbs of mirin

1 tsp of ponzu

4 earl grey tea bags

2-3 pieces of whole star anise, more if you're using broken pieces

1 cinnamon stick

black pepper to taste

red pepper flakes to taste

combine all ingredients in a heat-proof (i use glass) tupperware, and then fill all the way up with boiling water, ensuring that eggs are completely submerged.  Put the lid on the tupperware and give it a bit of a shake to ensure ingredients are all mixed up with the water and not settled on the bottom.  Let cool on counter then move to refrigerator.  Let steep for at least a couple hours.  The longer you let them steep, the stronger the flavor will be.

Probably Vegan Fudge

10 oz bag of dark chocolate chunks

14 fl oz can of coconut cream

First check the ingredients of the dark chocolate chunks to make sure they don't contain dairy, if you are particular about that kind of thing.  If you're not then whatever just dump it in a bowl.  Pour in the coconut cream and give it a bit of a stir, then pop the bowl in the microwave for about 1-2 minutes.  Take the bowl out and give it a really good stir with a whisk until it appears to be a thick, homogeneous mixture.  Grease up an 8x8 baking pan and pour in the chocolate/coconut mixture.  Cover with plastic and place in the freezer for like an hour, then demote to the refrigerator until fully set and you're ready to serve.  Keep cold.

extra touches:

i put the fish on a bed of sticky rice (short grain white rice mixed up with some seasoned rice vinegar) and included some little containers of soy sauce. i also sprinkled some honey-roasted almonds over the fudge and added some cherry tomatoes in the section with the tea eggs to act as an edible filler.

Quick Snack 2: Miso Soup

Miso soup can be made a lot of different ways with a lot of different ingredients.  It can take hours to make, or seconds.  I like the way that takes seconds.

you'll need:
-hot water

-a mug

-miso paste (whatever is your favorite kind)

-dried wakame

directions: drop a couple heaping tablespoons of miso into your mug and sprinkle in as much wakame as you like (keep in mind it's gonna expand so don't put in too much).  pour in enough hot water to fill the mug. stir it up and wait a little bit for the wakame to re-hydrate. drink it while it's hot!

Ube Bars, Zaru Soba, and Inarizushi

Today's ingredients all came from Buford Highway Farmer's Market, the local international supermarket.

I'll start with dessert first, because this is the dish I am most excited about.  It features ube, or purple yam, a Filipino root vegetable introduced to me by my boyfriend's mother.  It's probably one of my favorite foods.  It's sweet and starchy with a much milder flavor than your typical sweet potato.  My parents have never tried ube before, so i wanted to make something simple that would showcase the natural flavor of the ube without having it get bogged down with too many other flavors in the mix.  I wanted to make something like lemon bars, and came up with this recipe.

purple yam bars
crust:
3/4 c butter cookie or graham cracker crumbs
1/2 stick melted butter
 combine the cracker crumbs with the melted butter and & press the mixture into bottom of greased 8" x 8" pan. I used these:

because i had a lot of them in the cabinet, leftover from my last buford hwy trip, but you can use any sort of cookie or sweet cracker crumbs.


filling:
2 large purple yams. cut into pieces
1 egg beaten
1 tablespoon of flour
1/2 of a 13.5 oz can of coconut milk

Bring a large pot of water to a boil then add the yams.  Boil for about 20 minutes or until tender.  The water will get really dark and cool looking like this:

  Drain and run under cold water. Peel the skins off of the yams and discard.  Transfer yams to a large bowl. add coconut milk to yams and mash. stir in egg, then flour. pour over crust, spread evenly. bake at 350 until knife comes out clean, ~25 min.  Finished looks like this:

The ube bars are the most labor intensive of this bento, the other two dishes are very quick and easy.

Zaru soba is cold buckwheat noodles with a very simple sauce.  My lazy recipe goes like this:

INGREDIENTS

1 package or bundle of soba

soy sauce to taste

mirin to taste

dashi or other fish sauce to taste (optional)

sesame seeds

1. cook the soba noodles according to package instructions.
2. drain and rinse with cold water. set aside.
3.  in a small bowl, mix up a hefty splash of soy sauce with another hefty splash of mirin.  add a little dashi or fish sauce if you're into that.  also add a little bit of cold water so the flavor of the soy sauce isn't too strong.
4. either put the sauce in a separate container to accompany the noodles or just pour it into the same container as the noodles.
5. garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

My inarizushi recipe is even easier because I used premade ingredients.

INGREDIENTS:
inarizushi no moto
microwave rice bowl
seasoned rice vinegar

1. microwave rice according to package instructions.
2. mix in a little bit of seasoned rice vinegar into the rice.
3. stuff the inarizushi no moto with the rice.
4. that's all!