Cooking: Dinner for Jan 14 - part 2

The dinner menu was:

Appetizer - Bacon-rolled enokitake mushrooms
Meat - Beef patties with onions and peppers
Vegetables - Mushroom stroganoff
Carb - Minty courgette linguine

I am glad I prepared some of the dishes the night before. That night we were in a rush and didn't have time to do lots of cooking before heading out.

The bacon rolled enokitake mushrooms was the easiest to make. Because I prepped it the night before, I just had to put it in the oven. The recipe book said to put in their for 10-13 mins. I set the timer for 13 minutes and the bacon wasn't cooked yet. It took about 25 mins in total to cook the bacon. Of course the picture in the recipe book made it look beautiful. When I took it out, the mushroom was wilted but it tasted great.

The beef patties with onion and green pepper recipe was the one recipe that didn't really work out for me. I made the meat into patties. Once I put it in the pan, the meat started falling apart. I think the recipe was missing a 'sticking agent', like flour or egg or something. The recipe called for green peppers but I substituted colored peppers instead. I wanted to add some color. In one of the steps, it says to add seasoning. I added some Chinese flavours like hoisin sauce, sweet Thai chili sauce to the beef. It ended up becoming ground beef with onions and coloured peppers.

I didn't end up making the mushroom stroganoff. I didn't have time. I had to make white wine sauce then add it to the recipe. The dinner was fine without this dish. Maybe next time.

The last dish is minty courgette (zucchini) linguine. This dish had the most substitutions. I asked my dad to get the mint for this dish. I didn't have time to check if my dad bought the mint. There was no mint added to this dish. I used spaghetti instead of linguine. This dish became just zucchini and spaghetti. The night before I cooked the zucchini. I think I overcooked it. The recipe said to cook it until it is brown on one side. By the time it was brown on one side, it was overcooked. Oh well. It still tasted fine.

Overall, dinner was great. Everything tasted fine even with the substitutions. I would make them again.

Cooking: Dinner for Jan 14 - part 1

One of my goals this year to learn to cook. I will be cooking more using recipes from my cookbooks, my iphone apps and online recipes. I will be writing about my experience cooking the recipe, if I substituted any items and of course the final product.

I bought a recipe book called 'Best Ever Three and Four Ingredient Cookbook'. The recipes call for 3 or 4 ingredients. They don't count olive oil and salt and pepper as ingredients.

For tomorrow's dinner the menu is:

Appetizer - Bacon-rolled enokitake mushrooms
Meat - Beef patties with onions and peppers
Vegetables - Mushroom stroganoff
Carb - Minty courgette linguine

I am trying to prepare as much as I can tonight because we don't have much time to make and eat dinner tomorrow night.

Because I have a small kitchen, I did one dish at a time. The enokitake mushrooms look similar (maybe the same) as shitake mushrooms. I bought shitake mushrooms to use for this recipe. This recipe is easy. You just wrap the uncooked bacon around the middle of the shitake mushroom, then you grill it for 10 mins (or until the bacon is cooked). Then you take it out and cut it in half and serve standing up. Tonight I just wrapped the bacon around shitake mushrooms. I will grill them tomorrow.

The beef patties with onions and peppers are supposed to be like hamburger patties but with some veggies. The recipe calls for green peppers. I decided that it would look prettier with red and yellow peppers. This recipe took the longest because you have to braise the meat with the veggies for 20 or so minutes. I think I used a small frying pan, I only used half of the veggies.

The mushroom stroganoff was the only dish I didn't make yet. I didn't have time tonight. I think it would be easy enough to make tomorrow night. It is basically various types of mushrooms with a white wine sauce. I didn't know what white whine sauce is until I googled it.

For the minty courgette linguine, I substituted spaghetti and fettuccine for the linguine. The only ingredient I am missing is the mint. My parents said they will get the mint for me tomorrow. Courgettes are also known as zucchini. I fried the zucchini and cooked the pasta tonight. I just have to add olive oil and the mint tomorrow.

I guess I should read the fine print. All the dishes I made serves four. That's why I have so much food. I wanted to follow the recipes 'as is' so I know what it is supposed to be like before I modify the serving size. I wanted to make as much as possible tonight and just reheat tomorrow.