Anna Mooney's Food Blog

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Spring Rolls

I purchased some rice paper a couple of weeks ago and decided to give making spring rolls a try.  Rice paper is a little bit daunting to work with because it’s easy to tear, but I knew that they were going to be delicious whether they were torn or not. 

Joseph and I rolled our own.  I tore mine 2x.  Finally, I just rolled the little tear into the roll.  Joseph’s rolls turned out better than mine, but he was already eating them when I was ready to start taking pictures. 

For the filling, I used braised cabbage in soy sauce, sugar, rice vinegar, and salt.  We also had some cellophane noodles, aka mung bean vermicelli, and of course carrots, green onions, and garlic.  In other news, I bought some duck sauce for dipping.  

I found this recipe on the Epicurious website.  It was a good find.  I’m pretty sure it’s from an Italian street vendor in Philadelphia.

Primanti’s Sandwich

• 3 cups very finely shredded Savoy cabbage
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon celery seed, crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 2 small russet potatoes
• Vegetable oil, for frying
• 4 ounces capicola, sliced
• 4 ounces provolone, sliced
• 4 thick slices Italian bread (ideally, about 6 by 4 inches, not too crusty)
• 1 ripe tomato, sliced

Southern Food, Food for Poor People

We were broke last week so I decided to make homemade biscuits, red cabbage, pork with rosemary, white beans, and mashed potatoes.  I think it cost us around $6, and we managed to squeeze 3 meals out of it.  In fact, we still have biscuits in the freezer and white beans in the fridge.

As an added bonus, we had some homemade muscadine jelly from Joseph’s mom. 

I wish I had some recipes to post, but they would just be arbitrary measurements since I didn’t use any recipes or write anything down.  Southern cooking at its best.

I made Willa’s stocking for her first Christmas.

How to:

1) I drew a stocking shape out on paper and used that to trace the fabric and cut out 2 stocking shapes.  Be considerate of the seam allowances and also of the width of the stocking.  You want to be able to fit stuff inside.

2) Type out the name or initials (if you prefer) in large font (200-300 point) and printed it.  Next, cut out all the letters very carefully.  Make sure that they are going to fit by comparing the printout to the stocking. 

3) Then, tape the first letter with a piece of packing tape that completely covers the letter to the white felt so that you can cut the letter out of the felt.  This part is delicate.  Repeat with each letter.

4) Sew the first letter to a piece of red felt.  Cut out the letter leaving a small border of red felt to achieve the outlined effect. Repeat with each letter.

5) Sew the letters to the front of the stocking.  Regularly check the spacing to ensure that you have enough room for all of the letters.

6) Sew the stocking pieces together by placing the side with the letter inward. Leave about 1/4” seam allowance and don’t sew up the top.  Turn it inside out and attach a small piece of ribbon or string at the top left corner to hang the stocking.

I just used initials for my stocking and Joseph’s. 

Bibimbap…

F or 2

3/4 C Rice (Uncooked)

1-2 Zucchinis (Cut into matchsticks)

4 C Fresh Spinach (Give or Take)

1/2 Package of Bean Sprouts

1/3 lb Ground Beef (I used turkey)

1 Carrot (Cut into matchsticks)

2 Eggs

Soy Sauce

Sriracha

Garlic

Sesame Oil

Sesame Seeds

Vegetable Oil

Salt

1) Prepare your rice according to the package

2) Wash bean sprouts 3x.  Put them in a sauce pan with 1 C of Water, 1 tsp Salt.  Cook over medium heat for 20 minutes.  Drain and mix sprouts with 1 Clove Minced Garlic, 1 tsp Sesame Oil, and a Pinch of Salt.  Set aside on a large platter.

3) Boil spinach for 1 minute.  Rinse in cold water.  Drain water.  Mix with 1 tsp Soy Sauce, a Dash of Salt, 1 Clove Minced Garlic, and 1 tsp Sesame Oil.  Place on the platter.  You can adjust the seasonings for all of these steps to taste.

4) Toss zucchini in a dash of salt.  Saute over medium heat with enough oil to coat the pan until zucchini are tender and translucent. Move the zucchini to the platter.

5) Heat a skillet with 1 T Vegetable Oil and cook ground beef with 3 Cloves Minced Garlic, 1 T Soy Sauce, 1/2 tsp Sugar, Pepper, and about 1 T Sesame Oil.  Again, remember to adjust seasonings to taste. Move meat to the platter.

6) Saute carrot strips for a couple of minutes in a small amount of vegetable oil.  Move to the platter.

7) Prepare eggs sunny-side up. 

8) Serve rice in a bowl with egg on top and allow guests to add their own components from the platter.  Serve with Sriracha and sesame oil. 

I adapted this recipe from Maangchi.  You can reference their recipe here: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/bibimbap.  I could not find kosari and also ran out of shiitaki mushrooms so mine is a bit different.

Remember that stupid joke I made about Pho-Real?

Well. this is what I was making…

Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes

3T Curry Powder

 2 lbs  Chicken Breast, Cubed

2 T Veg Oil

2 T Shallot, Minced

2 Cloves Garlic, Minced

2 T Sriracha Chili Sauce

3 T Fish Sauce

Juice of 1/2 Lemon

3 Green Onions, Cut in 1” lengths

1” Piece of Ginger, Peeled and Cut into Matchsticks

1 1/2 C Broth (Chicken or Vegetable)

3 Carrots, 1/2” Pieces, Bias Cut

1 1/2 C Coconut Milk, Unsweetened

1 Yellow Onion, Sliced

1 Sweet Potato, 1” Cubes

Salt to taste

1) Combine chicken and 2 T curry powder in a bowl and allow to rest while preparing your vegetables.

2) Heat oil in a pot over medium heat, add garlic, shallot, Sriracha, 1 T curry powder, and cook for 2 minutes or so,

3) Add chicken, cook until chicken is completely white on the outside.  About 5 minutes.

4) Add fish sauce, lemon juice, green onions, ginger, sugar, and chicken broth.  Raise heat to high.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat.

5) Add carrots.  Cook until tender, about 10 minutes.  Add coconut milk, yellow onion, and sweet potato, cook an additional 15 minutes.

Serve over white rice.

Baked Baby Back Ribs with Lemon Rub and a Cranberry Sauce

Since it’s just the two of us, I made 1 full rack. We had leftovers.

1 Lemon (Juice and zest the lemon)

3 Cloves of Garlic (smashed)

1 T Fresh Thyme

1 tsp Rosemary

1 tsp Mustard

1 T Brown Sugar

2 T Olive OIl

Salt and Pepper

Rack of Ribs

Prepare the ribs by removing the white membrane on the underside of the ribs that covers the bones.  Combine the first 8 ingredients in a food processor and smear the paste all over the ribs.  Seal in plastic and refrigerate for a few hours.  I always let mine sit for a couple of days.  Wrap them in aluminum foil. Preheat the oven at 250F and cook for about 2 hours. After the first hour, you can turn the ribs.  Open up the aluminum foil.  Turn up the heat to 350F and finish them for about 20 minutes.  I always suggest using a thermometer, but try to use it only when necessary because a lot of moisture drains out each time.  www.amazingribs.com has some pretty useful tips and tricks.  I would suggest reading up.

I made traditional holiday cranberry sauce since we had an extra bag of cranberries laying around from Thanksgiving.  Recipe:

Cranberry Sauce

1/2 Bag of Cranberries

1/2 C Sugar

1/2 C Orange Juice

Cook them in a sauce pan for about 10 minutes or until they start to pop.  Let the sauce cool for a bit so that it congeals nicely.

On the side, we served roasted potatoes with Sriracha.

HOMEMADE BABY FOOD:

Ginger Apple Squash.

It doesn’t take nearly as much effort as you might think.  I just prepared a small batch here, but you can make as much as you want for freezing.  Typically, we will prepare the vegetables by themselves without any added flavors or other vegetables.  This way, we can try different spices and herbs, and we don’t waste any hard work in the event that Baby Willa doesn’t like it.

Preparing almost all vegetables for 4-8 month old infants involves: peeling, steaming, and mashing.  Squash is a little different because it has so many seeds so in addition to removing as many as we could we also pushed the squash through a strainer after we mashed it. 

I added about 1/2 tsp of ginger and 2 or 3 T of Simply Apple to the squash puree.  It doesn’t take much juice because squash has so much water already.

Willa enjoyed it.

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