bibimbap

BEE-BIM-BOP! This is the most awesome word to say. I'm really lucky that Audrey did not smack me across the face when we were shopping for the ingredients and then while we were making it. I can be annoying at times. C'mon, say it with me!

BEE-BIM-BOP
BEE-BIM-BOP
BEEEE-BIIIIMMMM-BOOOOOOP!

That's not even how you say it! It's buh-BEEM-bop, but BEE-BIM-BOP has a much better ring to it, if I do say so myself.

Bibimbap is a traditional Korean dish that means "mixed rice." That's because you throw everything over rice and mix it all together. Audrey's family makes it (though they're not Korean), so she was kind enough to show me the ropes this weekend.

*Audrey's Bibimbap*

1 pound ground turkey
1/3 cup red miso
2 bunches green onions
1 bag bean sprouts
2 big bunches spinach, rinsed well
white rice
4 eggs
soy sauce
sesame oil
sesame seeds

First things first, make your rice.

Boil a big pot of water. Blanch the bean sprouts for less than a minute. Fish them out of the water and set them aside. Now, blanch your spinach. Strain through a colander and set aside in a separate bowl. Flavor both the spinach and sprouts with about a tbsp each of soy sauce and sesame oil. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and let marinate.

Meanwhile, cook the meat through in a large saucepan with 3/4 of the green onions. Once the meat has been cooked through, add in the red miso and soy sauce to taste.

Keep the meat covered and warm. Fry the eggs in a separate non stick pan, but keep them runny in the middle.

Assemble the bowls by layering the bottom with rice and each the spinach, bean sprouts and meat into 1/3s over it. Top with the egg.

Mix it all up. Eat.

mostly pantry puttanesca

Puttanesca Recipe + Picture of a Kitty= HEAD EXPLODIE! Are you totally creeped out right about now? I promise you, no cats were harmed in the making of this puttanesca. I have gotten fairly lazy with the picture taking and wanted to post this awesome recipe, and blogs require pics, so meet my other cat, Maeby. My friend and teammate (Go Jedi Masters!), Mustafa, let me borrow his lens, and this is part of that experiment. I must get me one of those.

So anyway, I did a quick look over teh interwebs today and found this little doosie on the origins of Puttanesca (via NY Times):

Ostensibly a sauce invented and made by prostitutes, it is said that pasta puttanesca was designed to lure customers with its aroma. Other explanations have more appeal to the minimalist cook: that the prostitutes were too busy to cook much, or that they had no storage for fresh ingredients and cooked entirely from the pantry. My favorite legend has it that it was a favorite not of prostitutes, but of women who wanted to serve a quick meal at home in order to move on to other things.

So yes, no picture this week. But you should still make this recipe. Because whores like to make it. Wait, what does that make me?

Bran and I have been eating really late lately. He gets home after 7 every night :( and if we want to drive by a house that has just come on the market (we're house-hunting!) or do anything else that necessitates light, we have to do it in that window right after he gets home. That doesn't leave much time for cooking. And to be honest, I have a busy schedule of watching reruns of Beverly Hills 90210 to tend to after I get home from work, so dinner sometimes gets pushed aside.

So at about 8:15 last night, the question came up about dinner. Of course we hadn't been to the store in a week and Bran said he was craving pasta with red sauce. So, I started throwing things into a pot. We had 2 cans of this, one can of that, some of these, a few of those, some veggies that were almost past their prime... Voila! It isn't a true version of puttanesca (with the omission of anchovies and the added veg), but it's what it most closely resembled.

*Mostly Pantry Puttanesca*
1 medium brown onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, crushed
5 uncooked Italian sausage links
2 14oz cans diced tomatoes
1 14oz can tomato sauce
2 tsp red pepper flakes
1-2 tsp dried basil
2 heaping tbsp capers
1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
2 cups baby broccoli, chopped into large pieces

Heat your pasta water! I always forget to do that.

Cover the bottom of your pan with a thin layer of olive oil. Put in your onions and sauté until they are transparent. Add in the garlic and sausage. Cook through.

Add in all of your other ingredients. Let simmer with the lid off until your pasta (I like spaghetti here) is cooked or about 15 minutes.

Eat it up. Yum.

paella!

February is the month of many birthdays in my family; my husband, my brother in law, and my dad all have birthdays within a 3 day period. We get together for each birthday throughout the year, so this was to be a big celebration. It obviously called for one thing and one thing only: PAELLA PARTY!

OK, so maybe that‘s not *totally* true. My family, for the most part, is very meat and potatoes. My sister, Heidi, is an awesome and adventurous cook, but my dad and most of the rest of the people in my family prefer ribs and potato salad to my frou frou miso glazed sea bass with garlic ginger green beans and wasabi mashed potatoes.

Paella is something that I made in the past that fit the bill of something that everyone could enjoy. It calls for several carnivorous palette pleasers, not terribly exotic veggies, and the most basic of foods, rice. It’s a one pot meal, which is always nice. However, since I wanted to cook enough for 10, I used two dutch ovens (I don’t own a paella pan).

I have to admit, it is a fairly fussy recipe, but I have tried to simplify it as much as possible. Here she blows!

*Dutch Oven Paella*
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs (yes, thighs!), seasoned well with salt and pepper
1 pound spicy sausage - I used chicken andouille
1 pound shrimp
1 pound mussels
1 large onion
2 tbsp garlic
1 can diced tomatoes, liquid and all
2 cups arborio rice
3 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 tsp crumbled saffron threads (TJ's has them for cheap)
1/2 cup peas
1 bell pepper
1 or 2 dried bay leaves

Heat your oven to 350 degrees and adjust the rack to fit a big old dutch oven.

The first thing to do is blister your bell pepper over the stove. I take tongs and turn a burner on high and char the outside of the bell pepper until it gets slightly soft and blackened in spots on the outside. Chop it up into bite size pieces and set aside for later.

Next, use a few tbsp olive oil to brown up your thighs (bwahahahaha) and sausage over medium high heat. They don't have to be cooked all the way through, but you do want them to be nice and brown.

Add a bit more olive oil and then your onion. Let it soften for 3-4 minutes and scrape up all the browned bits with your wooden spoon. Add the garlic and let that cook for another minute or so.

Pour your can of tomatoes over everything and let that cook for a minute or two. Then, put in the rice. Cook the rice for about a minute and add the wine. Cook for another few seconds, then add the broth, bay leaves, and saffron. Let it come up to a boil.

Slap on the lid and stick it in the oven for 20 minutes.

Once the buzzer rings, take it out of the oven and put everything else in: shrimp, mussels, peas and bell pepper. Mix it all up and put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

Take it out of the oven and sprinkle some parsley on top. Try to give it a sec to cool and dig in! It pairs nicely with a spinach salad with lemon shallot dressing and crusty fresh bread with butter.