Anna in the Kitchen

[annalearnsthekitchen]

Thanksgiving Leftovers - Turkey Tetrazzini

Thanksgiving came and went and bf and I were sent home with lots of leftover turkey and ham.  I remembered my mom making turkey tetrazzini in the past with leftover turkey in the past, so I asked her for the recipe she used.  It’s from Food Network and has a couple more steps than the other recipes I found that used cans of condensed soup (not knocking it, but it made me feel like a real cook instead of just throwing and mixing a bunch of things together).

The recipe called for bacon, but since I had leftover ham, I made a substitution with that.  I used 1 cup of ham.  I also omitted the anchovies, because, ew.

I tend to get a lot of really big garlic cloves, so I only used 2 garlic cloves and got the amount below from my garlic press.  Maybe I need to lean into the “there’s no such thing as too much garlic” more, but 4 jumbo cloves seemed like too much.  Maybe I’m also used to my veggie roasting where a little garlic goes a long way.

I went to the grocery store on Sunday at 9 am, so I couldn’t buy wine, so I also did the substitution of more chicken broth.  Nothing seems to be missing from the recipe.

Throughout the whole recipe, I kept feeling like the liquid wasn’t reducing like the recipe said, even after adding the flour.  I extended the times some, but mostly just pushed ahead.

I wasn’t sure what the recipe meant by “lumpy” and you can see what it looked like below.  It did smooth out eventually, but it definitely took a little while.

Below is the smoothed out sauce!  But it still felt pretty thin at this point.

Even after adding the meat and peas it seemed thin, so I kept it boiling to try to thicken it up more.

It finally seemed to be the right consistency when I added the pasta.  Gif of the final product courtesy of Boomerang.

The panko I bought (italian flavor) came in packets, so I just used an entire packet instead of measuring anything out.  It all baked together very nicely!

This was a big win and provided us with plenty of leftovers throughout the week that was filling and warm when the temps outside dropped below freezing.  10/10, would cook again!

[annalearnsthekitchen]

Neiman Marcus $250k Cookies

I don’t know where exactly my mom got this cookie recipe.  I think it was chain email in the 90′s with some story about how a woman got some cookies from a Neiman Marcus cafe and asked to buy the recipe and they said it was two-fifty and it ended up being 250 so she was circulating the recipe around to get her money’s worth from the recipe, or some other nonsense.  Snopes fact-checked it.

Regardless of the origin, it’s a pretty good cookie!  It makes a lot of cookies, so I pretty much always half it.  Since my stand mixer is only a mini, I definitely couldn’t have made a full recipe.  Below is the full recipe

2 cups butter

1 tsp salt

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

2 cups brown sugar

2 tsp baking soda

4 eggs

24 oz chocolate chips

2 tsp vanilla 

1, 3 oz, grated Hershey bar

4 cups flour

3 cups chopped nuts (can be omitted - I never add nuts)      

5 cups blended oatmeal

Blended oatmeal: Measure 5 cups oat meal.  Place in blender and grind to a fine powder.

Cream butter and both sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.  Add chips, candy, and nuts.  Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake for 6 minutes (normally takes more time, just cook until golden brown) at 375.

6 minutes was definitely not enough time in my oven, I did closer to 15 minutes, but I might have overcooked them a little.  I wasn’t seeing a golden brown color and they were easier to get off the pan when they were a little more cooked, but then they were on the crispier side.  They soften up when they’re microwaved though, so it isn’t too big of an issue.  I also used dark chocolate instead of regular chocolate chips and Hershey bar to make the cookies a little special!

The only issue I had was that I realized I don’t have a grater.  I had frozen the Hershey bar to make grating easier.  Luckily my handy Ninja came to the rescue and it did the job pretty well.

[annalearnsthekitchen]

I made another half batch of these cookies and they turned out totally differently. It was a last minute decision, so I don't think my butter was all the way to room temperature when I creamed the butter and sugar. I also took the cookies out of the oven after only 15 minutes, so the cookies were just browning around the edges instead is brown all over. They came out almost fluffy this time! Baking definitely has a lot of variability that I'll need to learn more about.

[annalearnsthekitchen]

Neiman Marcus $250k Cookies

I don’t know where exactly my mom got this cookie recipe.  I think it was chain email in the 90′s with some story about how a woman got some cookies from a Neiman Marcus cafe and asked to buy the recipe and they said it was two-fifty and it ended up being 250 so she was circulating the recipe around to get her money’s worth from the recipe, or some other nonsense.  Snopes fact-checked it.

Regardless of the origin, it’s a pretty good cookie!  It makes a lot of cookies, so I pretty much always half it.  Since my stand mixer is only a mini, I definitely couldn’t have made a full recipe.  Below is the full recipe

2 cups butter

1 tsp salt

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

2 cups brown sugar

2 tsp baking soda

4 eggs

24 oz chocolate chips

2 tsp vanilla 

1, 3 oz, grated Hershey bar

4 cups flour

3 cups chopped nuts (can be omitted - I never add nuts)      

5 cups blended oatmeal

Blended oatmeal: Measure 5 cups oat meal.  Place in blender and grind to a fine powder.

Cream butter and both sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.  Add chips, candy, and nuts.  Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake for 6 minutes (normally takes more time, just cook until golden brown) at 375.

6 minutes was definitely not enough time in my oven, I did closer to 15 minutes, but I might have overcooked them a little.  I wasn’t seeing a golden brown color and they were easier to get off the pan when they were a little more cooked, but then they were on the crispier side.  They soften up when they’re microwaved though, so it isn’t too big of an issue.  I also used dark chocolate instead of regular chocolate chips and Hershey bar to make the cookies a little special!

The only issue I had was that I realized I don’t have a grater.  I had frozen the Hershey bar to make grating easier.  Luckily my handy Ninja came to the rescue and it did the job pretty well.

[annalearnsthekitchen]

Beef Bulgogi

A while ago, I found some marinade at Kroger (from their Private Selections fancy pants store brand) and I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I liked the sound of the flavors (Korean Inspired. Tamari, Garlic, Ginger, Pear and Pineapple Juice. Private Selection Bulgogi Marinade is prepared with the traditional savory, sweet and mildly spicy flavors of Korean cuisine).  I got home and read the label more closely and discovered it was made for beef.  I don’t prepare beef very often, so I decided to save it until I moved in with bf so I’d have some extra help.

The instructions were not very helpful:

Marinate thinly sliced top sirloin beef, julienned carrot, button mushrooms and roughly chopped onion for at least 90 minutes, then place on a large piece of aluminum foil and seal. Grill or bake. Serve on a bed of rice and garnish with thinly sliced green onions.

The first part seemed easy enough, except I didn’t want to buy whole carrots that I’d have to peel and such, so I bought baby carrots since bf could eat the extra ones as a snack.  Baby carrots are tough to chop.  I thought it would be an easy prep task to give bf but his knife skills could use some improvement.  They were nowhere close to julienned.

For the thinly sliced beef, I had to conquer my fear of talking to people and try to get help from the meat counter, which ended up being no help at all.  My mom told me they should thinly slice it for me, but then they said they couldn’t.  I’m sure if my mom had been there, she would have known the magic thing to say to get it done, but they could probably tell I didn’t know what I wanted and just wanted to brush me off.  So I bought the beef and sliced it on my own, definitely not thin enough.

For marinading, I ended up using the entire bottle and it seemed appropriate,  With lots of slices of beef and all the onions and carrots, there was a lot of surface area to cover.

The last part was tricky... how to cook it.  The instructions weren’t helpful at all.  No temperature or time.  I tried Googling to figure out if anyone had made something like this, but every recipe I could find talked about cooking it on a stove.  Since there was so much food, I decided to split it in two and try cooking it two different ways.

One way was on the stove, like on the internet.  This gave the meat a really nice brown and caramelized the onions.  However, it was really messy as oil splattered everywhere.

The other method was trying to do it the way the instructions vaguely told me to do it.  I chose 350 and checked in on it every so often.  I don’t remember how long I cooked it for.  When it was done, I had to figure out how to get everything out without making a mess. I ended up pouring it over a colander over a bowl to catch the juice.  This helped save the juice for pouring over with the rice.  The meat and onions didn’t have the same nice color, and the juice was a little tricky to navigate.

Left you can see the oven and right you can see the stove.  We did half and half on each plate to compare and our taste buds couldn’t tell the difference.

This meal was a hit and gave us a lot of leftovers, which is plus.  I decided that for next time, we’ll try oven again, but put it in a Pyrex dish and maybe bake uncovered (or a combo of covered and uncovered) to hopefully keep some of the juicy, but make it less soupy and have easier clean up.  I’ll report back when and if we get to do it again!

Does anyone know a better way to cook meat on the stove in oil without having splatter everywhere?  Inquiring minds want to know!

[annalearnsthekitchen]

Banana bread, part 1

My boyfriend is a monster who likes to eat unripe bananas.  Ok, that doesn’t really make him a monster, but I like my bananas freckly and ripe.  He was complaining about how ripe the bananas were when picking one up for a snack, which gave me the brilliant idea to make banana bread, rather than have him eat the bananas that were too ripe for his tastes.

I have made banana bread A LOT in my life.  Mostly it has been my southern grandma’s banana bread recipe that I grew up eating all the time.  I went through a phase a few years ago where I tried to learn how to make banana bread muffins using healthier recipes that included things like whole wheat flour and honey, but they were never as good as grandma’s, full of fat and sugar and yumminess.

I decided to try a new recipe from The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook.

The first thing I had to figure out how to do was toast the walnuts.  The only way to do this is to google “how to toast walnuts” and follow the instructions on the first website that pops up, conveniently named How to Toast Walnuts.  I went with option number 2 on this site, toasting them on the stove.  I might have had the stove set too high, because they seemed to turn darker than I was expecting and smelled a little more burned than toasted.  But I took them off the stove before the time was up and moved on.  Also, the recipe called for 1 ¼ cups of walnuts, but the bag came with 1 ½ cups, so I just used the entire bag.  I figured they’d take up less volume once they were chopped using my Ninja Chopper, one of my underutilized kitchen accessories.  And if you’re going to put nuts in the bread, why not just have more?

The mechanics of the recipe were pretty easy.  You didn’t even need to use a blender since the butter was melted and allowed to cool, which I did as an after thought, so I’m not sure how cool my butter was and if it was cool enough, but everything worked!  I will say, I was actually a little disappointed that I didn’t get to use my stand mixer, which was a Christmas present that I’ve had for a while and have only used once or twice.  So many underutilized kitchen accessories!

One down side of this recipe was that it called for ¼ cup of plain yogurt.  I could only find a huge tub of plain yogurt.  Maybe I wasn’t looking closely enough, but I thought I scoured my Kroger shelves.  Everything was either Greek yogurt or had fruit in it.  Maybe plain Greek yogurt would have been ok, but I didn’t want to chance it.  But the large tub of store brand plain yogurt was only about $2, which is probably not that much more expensive than a specialty small serving of yogurt.  I just hate food waste, so I’ll have to see if I can find any other uses for it, or I’ll see if I can stomach eating it on its own (with some chocolate granola sprinkled in it).  I usually eat vanilla yogurt and I don’t know if I’m quite sure what plain yogurt tastes like…

I got a little nervous watching the bread rise in the oven, picturing it baking over and making a mess in the oven, but it stayed contained the entire time!  I also worried about over baking since some parts of the bread gave me a clean toothpick and another part came out banana-y.  So far, I don’t think the bread has been too dry though!

I ate my first slice (an end piece) last night when I baked this and it seemed more crusty that I was used to from banana bread, but that could have been from the fact that it was an end piece and semi-fresh from the oven.  I had another piece this morning for breakfast and it was good and the outer portion didn’t seem as crusty.  Boyfriend gets back from his weekend trip later today, so we’ll have to see his reaction to the banana bread.

I named this post part 1 because at some point, I’m sure I’ll post about making my grandma’s banana bread for comparison.  Also, the cookbook also included an “ultimate banana bread” recipe, which I’ll have to try.  It required 6 bananas though, so I’d have to buy bananas specifically for that and not rely on excess bananas that my boyfriend didn’t eat.

I’d say this recipe was a success, but I don’t think it’ll replace my grandma’s recipe since it requires that small amount of yogurt.  But now I might be inspired to add the walnuts to my grandma’s recipe to give it a little something extra!  I could use another crack at toasting the walnuts to see if I can do a better job the next time around.

Edited to add: I actually used butter and flour to grease the pan as the recipe said. Normally I’d just spray Pam and be done with it, but I’ve watched all of Nailed It! on Netflix and I’ve seen that go wrong with contestants and learned I shouldn’t do that.

[annalearnsthekitchen]

Update: non flavored yogurt is yucky. I will not attempt to eat it again.

[buzzfeed]

Please put down the turkey baster.

[annalearnsthekitchen]

Banana bread, part 1

My boyfriend is a monster who likes to eat unripe bananas.  Ok, that doesn’t really make him a monster, but I like my bananas freckly and ripe.  He was complaining about how ripe the bananas were when picking one up for a snack, which gave me the brilliant idea to make banana bread, rather than have him eat the bananas that were too ripe for his tastes.

I have made banana bread A LOT in my life.  Mostly it has been my southern grandma’s banana bread recipe that I grew up eating all the time.  I went through a phase a few years ago where I tried to learn how to make banana bread muffins using healthier recipes that included things like whole wheat flour and honey, but they were never as good as grandma’s, full of fat and sugar and yumminess.

I decided to try a new recipe from The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook.

The first thing I had to figure out how to do was toast the walnuts.  The only way to do this is to google “how to toast walnuts” and follow the instructions on the first website that pops up, conveniently named How to Toast Walnuts.  I went with option number 2 on this site, toasting them on the stove.  I might have had the stove set too high, because they seemed to turn darker than I was expecting and smelled a little more burned than toasted.  But I took them off the stove before the time was up and moved on.  Also, the recipe called for 1 1/4 cups of walnuts, but the bag came with 1 1/2 cups, so I just used the entire bag.  I figured they’d take up less volume once they were chopped using my Ninja Chopper, one of my underutilized kitchen accessories.  And if you’re going to put nuts in the bread, why not just have more?

The mechanics of the recipe were pretty easy.  You didn’t even need to use a blender since the butter was melted and allowed to cool, which I did as an after thought, so I’m not sure how cool my butter was and if it was cool enough, but everything worked!  I will say, I was actually a little disappointed that I didn’t get to use my stand mixer, which was a Christmas present that I’ve had for a while and have only used once or twice.  So many underutilized kitchen accessories!

One down side of this recipe was that it called for 1/4 cup of plain yogurt.  I could only find a huge tub of plain yogurt.  Maybe I wasn’t looking closely enough, but I thought I scoured my Kroger shelves.  Everything was either Greek yogurt or had fruit in it.  Maybe plain Greek yogurt would have been ok, but I didn’t want to chance it.  But the large tub of store brand plain yogurt was only about $2, which is probably not that much more expensive than a specialty small serving of yogurt.  I just hate food waste, so I’ll have to see if I can find any other uses for it, or I’ll see if I can stomach eating it on its own (with some chocolate granola sprinkled in it).  I usually eat vanilla yogurt and I don’t know if I’m quite sure what plain yogurt tastes like...

I got a little nervous watching the bread rise in the oven, picturing it baking over and making a mess in the oven, but it stayed contained the entire time!  I also worried about over baking since some parts of the bread gave me a clean toothpick and another part came out banana-y.  So far, I don’t think the bread has been too dry though!

I ate my first slice (an end piece) last night when I baked this and it seemed more crusty that I was used to from banana bread, but that could have been from the fact that it was an end piece and semi-fresh from the oven.  I had another piece this morning for breakfast and it was good and the outer portion didn’t seem as crusty.  Boyfriend gets back from his weekend trip later today, so we’ll have to see his reaction to the banana bread.

I named this post part 1 because at some point, I’m sure I’ll post about making my grandma’s banana bread for comparison.  Also, the cookbook also included an “ultimate banana bread” recipe, which I’ll have to try.  It required 6 bananas though, so I’d have to buy bananas specifically for that and not rely on excess bananas that my boyfriend didn’t eat.

I’d say this recipe was a success, but I don’t think it’ll replace my grandma’s recipe since it requires that small amount of yogurt.  But now I might be inspired to add the walnuts to my grandma’s recipe to give it a little something extra!  I could use another crack at toasting the walnuts to see if I can do a better job the next time around.

Edited to add: I actually used butter and flour to grease the pan as the recipe said. Normally I'd just spray Pam and be done with it, but I've watched all of Nailed It! on Netflix and I've seen that go wrong with contestants and learned I shouldn't do that.

[annalearnsthekitchen]

Intro

Why am I starting a new blog?  I’ve been living by myself for almost 5 years after living with roommates since college.  Throughout that time, I’ve accumulated a fairly full set of cookware and bakeware.  I’ve tried new recipes, experimented, but I’ve mostly been cooking for one, which makes the effort of experimentation a lot of the outcome of being the only person to enjoy it.  I’ve had a boyfriend for the past 3.5 years, but 2.5 of those were long distance.  We’ve finally made our way back to the same city and have moved in together.  Now I’m cooking for TWO!  I have a stack of cookbooks and kitchen supplies that have been underutilized.  My new year’s resolution for 2019 will be some variation of try a certain number of new recipes a month, some cooking, some baking.  But I’ve started doing some cooking now, so why wait to write about it?  I want to give the recipes, talk about what I did, what I’d do differently, and how it all turned out.  I might talk about trying a recipe again if I decide to implement the changes.  If anyone ever reads this, maybe it’ll help them.  If I’m just yelling into the internet void, then I’ll have the notes for myself when I need to reference and remember.  Enjoy!