Mac, Cheese & Brussel Sprouts
Even though I am a huge fan of the unnaturally orange-yellow Kraft macaroni and cheese (I always loved putting a noodle on each tine of my fork before eating it – savoring every orange-yellow bite), I thought I’d step up my boxed mac & cheese with Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese. It was actually quite delicious, with a pretty rich flavor for a cheese powder. I did add 2 tbsp of butter – but hey, I made it “healthy” with some roasted brussel sprouts. The brussel sprouts ended up being a really nice complement to the cheesy shells.
Cheesy Mac with Brussel Sprouts
Easy Roasted Brussel Sprouts
1-1/2 lbs of brussel sprouts
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Wash and trim the brussel sprouts, removing any yellow leaves. Slice the brussel sprouts in half. In a large bowl, mix the brussel sprouts with olive oil, a few good pinches of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste. The brussel sprouts should be slightly glistening with the oil. Spread the brussel sprouts out on a sheet pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the sprouts are tender. Use tongs to flip/mix the brussel sprouts halfway through the baking time.
Happy eating!
Breaking Our Resolution
After three days, we broke our resolutions of eating healthy and cooking more and went to Sedgwick’s to indulge in Cajun chicken strips and a tator tot mountain. (Of course, Matt feigned surprise when I brought it up over dinner, noting that those sounded like my resolutions rather than a couple resolution. You sneaky husband.)
New Year’s Day Brunch
Sticking to our resolution of cooking more instead of eating out, after waking up on New Year’s day a little after 10:30am and doing a little scouting in the fridge, we found a bag of frozen blueberries and got to work making blueberry pancakes with blueberry sauce and fresh whipped cream.
The trick for not turning the entire pancake batter blue is to add the blueberries after you ladle the batter into the pan. We used the rest of our boxed pancake mix (Aunt Jemima brand) and added frozen blueberries, after rinsing and patting the blueberries dry.
For the blueberry sauce, we used this recipe from Allrecipes.com.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups blueberries
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, mix 1 1/2 cups blueberries, honey and 1/4 cup orange juice. Bring to a boil. Mix remaining orange juice and cornstarch in a small bowl, and stir into the blueberry mixture. Stir constantly until thickened.
For the whip cream, we put about a cup or so of whipping cream in our KitchenAid mixer, started on low with the whisk attachment and slowly worked the speed up until soft peaks formed. I also threw in less than a teaspoon or sugar and two drops of vanilla extract while it was on the lower speed.
This wasn’t exactly a low cal breakfast, but we are slowly working towards more healthy meals. To our credit blueberries are full of healthy antioxidants. 
Happy eating everyone!
New Year – More Blogging!
[5:20pm, C] It’s only been more than a year since I last posted, but I figured I should have at least one post in 2011 before 2012 is here.
First, a recap of 2011: Matt and I got married (yay!), Matt started a new job and I started a new job within my current job. We went to three weddings for dear friends, celebrated my grandma’s 70th birthday (go grandma!) and bought a new (used) car.
In 2012, we’re looking forward to five weddings (!), two vacations, and hopefully one huge life change. Since we’re hoping to scale back in 2012 with the down economy, it will mean more nights in cooking and hopefully, more blogging about our cooking adventures.
So, to ring in the New Year, we’re live blogging our New Year’s Eve meal! Instead of fighting the Chicago crowds for a drink and freezing outside while waiting for a cab, we fought the crowds at Whole Foods for a crazy amount of groceries and are staying in tonight and preparing an (epic) five course meal while watching Midnight In Paris before the ball drops at midnight.
The Menu
Cheese course
Avocado and Arugula salad
Steamed Mussels
Trout Amandine with Wild Rice Pilaf
Lemon Sorbet with Blackberries
The Beverages
Seven Daughters White Wine blend
Terre di Gioia Pinot Nero
A New Year’s cocktail of Ketel One Vodka, Chambord, Saint Germain liqueur (elderflower) and Chandon Reserve Sparkling Wine (saved from our honeymoon, courtesy of my sister and brother-in-law)
At this point, we’re still cleaning the house…
Thank goodness it’s just the two of us!
[7:39pm, M] Well, I ate all the crostini, so we’re making progress. The Truffle Tremor from Cypress Grove is a delightful soft aromatic truffled cheese, and pairs nicely with… uh, pear. A polite Pinot Nero with the appellation Terre di Gioia (Italian for “Maybe You Shouldn’t Drink It All Before The Salad”) rounds things out, along with a Borough Market English cheddar that reminds us of food stalls and Turkish Delights on the south side of the Thames. A large French round loaf is sitting on the table, intimidating us.
Only 4 courses to go!
[7:49pm, C] While Matt was enjoying the cheese course (after a lovely prayer by Matt) and continuing to tidy up the living room in its post-Christmas state, I made dessert, started on the salad course and the rice pilaf.
For the dessert, we were content with just having lemon sorbet with a few blackberries for garnish, but after we started putting out the beverages we realized we had some Chambord in our liquor cabinet. A large handful of blackberries, 3 spoonfuls of sugar, 3 spoonfuls of Chambord and 1 spoonful of lemon juice later and we have the beginnings of the sauce. (I’m improvising here.)
The salad dressing is chilling and its flavors are melding together as we speak in the refrigerator, and the rice is on the stove with the chicken broth (1 cup wild rice + 3 cups chicken broth – boil the chicken broth first, rinse the rice in a few changes of water, add the rice, bring to a boil again, cover, heat and simmer on low for 50 minutes). Currently chop, chop, chopping away…
[8:17pm, M] Fireworks! Or a terror attack! Either way, something interesting is going on outside.
[8:36pm, C] Oh no, Matt has the video camera out. He is talking to himself in the mirror.
[8:47pm, M] Who was that handsome devil? I like the cut of his jib. Right now, we are about to start cooking our seafoods simultaneously. On the left side of the stove preparing mussels is Cristiana. On the right, with trout, is Matt. This is going to be a lot like Iron Chef if the chefs were handcuffed together. Note to self: new show idea.
[9:31pm, C] Friends, we did it. Pictures and recipes after the jump — Happy New Year everyone!!
City Bites – Chicago
Yesterday, Matt and I decided to take our new (used) bikes out for a test ride.
10 miles of biking, gorgeous views of the city and lake front, unrestricted time spent together, a trip to Vietnamese town for lunch followed by some of the best barbecue in Chicago for dinner.. overall, it was a pretty awesome day. :)
Gimbap Night
A long overdue post, but well worth it in light of its contents. This post is dedicated to that versatile and (relatively) healthy sushi-like roll that can be made with pretty much any ingredients as long as the resulting roll includes rice and gim.
I present to you – Gimbap! Be careful – these are addictive.
Gimbap topped with spinach, avocado and kimchee
Warning: This post contains pork.
It started with an invitation to my friend D and S’s house for Korean barbecue. Except, this wasn’t just any type of barbecue, it was pork barbecue, which my friend D had extolled as being one of the best types of barbecue. Delicious, fatty, pork belly barbecue to be exact.
Hello, samgyupsal. So nice to meet you.
Growing up, a pork dish was the pork spare ribs my dad would occasionally make for dinner. Or, if it was a special occasion, the huge roasted pork that included the head and tail (ah, how lord of the flies-esque those pigs were with their huge heads). Oh yes, and bacon. Delicious, crispy bacon. In any case, the idea of eating pork belly showed up on my radar when it showed up on the rest of the consuming public’s radar– basically, when it popped up on every cooking/cooking reality show (Top Chef pork belly tacos anyone?) and food blog in the past year (I know, as usual, I’m late the party).
I remember the meal well– thick slices of pork belly, king oyster mushrooms, soybean paste, lettuce and perilla leaves for wrapping, roasted garlic and sesame oil mixed with salt and pepper for dipping. Ever since then I have been addicted. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve since recreated the meal at home numerous times and I have random cravings for the fatty meat late at night. D, S, M and I even drove an hour out of the city to get some of the best samgyupsal in the burbs.
Feasting at Kim's Restaurant in Mundelein
God probably only allotted a certain amount of high calorie/high fat meals I can have in one lifetime, and I fear I’m probably reaching my limit from the amount of eating I’ve done in the past year. (Sometimes, I think about what I’m eating and what those long living Okinawans are eating, and then lament that there is probably little overlap. I swear, I will start eating and cooking healthier food as time goes on. At some point. Perhaps far into the future..)
In any case, while reading up on samgyupsal, I happened upon an article about a restaurant in New York that serves an entire pork butt with all of the side dishes and fixings. They called it Bo Ssam and the restaurant is, as you may have already guessed, Momofuku. A lovely present from friends, I got the Momofuku cookbook as a birthday gift last year. Although I’ve read through a lot of the stories, I was hesitant about trying any of the recipes, intimidated by how time intensive many of the recipes appeared to be. So, when I suddenly had a weekend when Matt was occupied with a friend and I was on my own, I thought, why not? I’ve got time. Or so I thought.
I present to you: Homemade Momofuku Pork Buns
Lovely Baked Eggs
Whether minimally seasoned with just salt and ground black pepper or an assortment of fresh herbs, or poached, fried, hard-boiled or soft-boiled, eggs are absolutely delicious. Mild, soft whites and delicious runny, savory yolks are my favorite way of having eggs, which is why I’ve taken to poaching eggs recently instead of frying (the whites in fried eggs don’t quite have the same soft texture as in poached eggs-perhaps for lack of technique on my part). However, I recently discovered an even better way of making eggs that fits perfectly with my taste preferences, is incredibly flexible and is simple to make.
The baked egg.
Cream puffery
Because sometimes you just feel like high-grade junk food
Every Friday Matt and I are faced with the same dilemma.
The dreaded “what are we doing tonight” question.
On weekday nights it’s easy to stay in and do nothing– who goes out on a weeknight during a Chicago winter? On Saturday, either we have plans or we are relieved that we have a night in. Sunday night is prepping for the next work day. Friday? It’s a day of celebration. The beginning of the weekend and the end of the work week. Everyone does something on Friday night.
So, every Friday at around 2pm, the following e-mail exchange occurs:
M: What do you want to do tonight?
C: I don’t know. Let’s eat out. What do you feel like?
M: I want to try something new. What do you think?
C: I don’t know, I don’t really feel like doing research.*
M: Me neither.
Hours later.
C: What do you think of Guinness and some fish and chips?
M: How about http://www.yelp.com/biz/big-and-littles-chicago#?
C: Let’s do it!
And that’s pretty much how it goes every week. Usually, I’ll get a craving for something if you give me enough time.
And lo and behold, no Guinness but some delicious and amazing fried seafood:
Big and Little's - Chicago, Illinois
