Chinese Green Beans with Peanuts, Golden Fried Tofu, Rice

 

Welcome to the second installment of Hannah’s New Year’s Resolution: Learning to Cook Chinese Food. I adapted the green bean recipe from a recipe I found on Epicurious; I basically increased the sauce-to-green-bean ratio. I also decided it was finally time to figure out how to cook nice fluffy rice and nice crispy tofu.

First, the ingredients:

Chinese Beef Noodle Soup Recipe

For years, I’ve wanted to learn to cook Chinese food, but I always gave up after looking at a couple recipes because I didn’t have the right ingredients in my pantry. This year I made it my New Year’s Resolution and scheduled a trip to the Chinese grocery store. I knew the first recipe I wanted to attempt was some sort of noodle soup, because that’s what Jon misses most from NYC. I found this recipe on Epicurious but adapted it a bit.

I used short ribs, but you could use another cut of meat that’s good for slow-cooking. Make sure it’s bone-in so it makes a delicious broth. Next time, I may try the recipe with chicken thighs.

One note: the soup was good the first night, but it was AMAZING on day two. So I recommend making it a day in advance.

First, the ingredients:

My year in blogging

WordPress cleverly sent me a summary of “my year in blogging.” Here’s what it said:

“The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

In 2011, there were 19 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 183 posts. There were 4 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 794kb.

The busiest day of the year was August 17th with 319 views. The most popular post that day was Which grocery store is cheapest, and by how much? A comparison of Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Market Basket.”

Mission: Find delicious, freezer-friendly, high-protein, low-sugar, low-dairy recipes

My sister asked me to suggest 10 recipes that are delicious, freezer-friendly …. well, you read the rest in the title. Here’s what I found, and the search made me very hungry. Please add any other ideas!

Slow-Cooked Pork Tacos
I have made this before, and it’s fantastic. I didn’t follow the recipe to the letter — most of the grocery stores I go to don’t have these kinds of chiles. But I did find the chipotles in adobo sauce, which is key. You can make the same recipe with chicken thighs, which is also amazing. And it’s not hard to make, you just need to have time to let it simmer for a long time on the stove.

Chicken, Sausage, and White Bean Stew

Moroccan Chickpea Stew with Chicken and Lentils

Butternut Squash, Coconut, and Lentil Stew

Beef and Butternut Squash Stew

Tofu Tacos

Lemon-Garlic Shrimp and Grits

Three Bean and Beef Chili

Ancient Grains Risotto-Style

Coq au Vin

Braised Pork Shoulder with Cranberry-Corn Dumplings

Happy Thanksgiving: My Pecan Pie and Ricotta Pie recipes

In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d share my family’s pecan pie and ricotta pie recipes. You can also check out my fabulous stuffing recipe here.

Sally Clark’s pie crust

1 1/3 cup flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

stick of chilled butter

ice water

This is my grandmother’s pie crust recipe. Dice the butter, then quickly mix it into the flour with your hands. The crust will be flakier if you can keep the dough cold. After it’s pretty well mixed, add ice water, just a tablespoon at a time, and work it into the dough. You want the dough just sticky enough so you can form it into a ball. Chill it in the fridge for 2-3 hours. It’s fine to leave it there overnight; I just made my dough and won’t bake the pies until tomorrow.

Pecan filling

3 eggs

1 cup maple syrup

1 cup chopped pecans

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

tiny bit flour to hold it together

zest of one orange or lemon, optional

My dad adapted this recipe from the Fannie Farmer cookbook. The main difference is that we use maple syrup instead of corn syrup. We prefer grade B syrup, which is richer and darker than grade A, but you can’t really get it outside of Vermont. Mix all the ingredients together, put it in the pie crust (no need to prebake the crust) and bake it for 35-40 mins @ 350 degrees.

Ricotta filling

1 pint whole milk ricotta

3 eggs

grating of orange zest

1 tsp almond or vanilla flavoring

1/3 cup sugar

a little flour, quarter cup

This recipe is also adapted from Fannie Farmer, but we use a lot less sugar (you don’t need much). Ricotta pie is light and tasty. Mix all the ingredients together, pour into a pie crust (no need to pre-bake) and bake 35-40 mins @ 350 degrees.