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Kyuuei's Cook book!

kyuuei

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Stuffed sweet potato:

- Sweet potatoes and a small pat of butter, with a slice halfway right down the lane, wrapped in foil, in the oven for 50 minutes @ 375 degrees.

The rest:

- 1 onion
- 1 package of mushrooms
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 bag leeks (approx. 2 cups)
- 1 small box or 1/2 of a big bag of frozen broccoli florets
- Cooking oil
- Cooking wine (I used lemon flavored sherry)
- Smoked paprika
- Chicken Shwarma seasoning
- Peri peri sauce

Basically put oil in the pan and heat it up. Steam the broccoli in the microwave for 6 minutes covered so it's cooked and soft already. Put everything into the food processor and chop it up fine, then stick it in the pan and cook all of the water out of the mixture. When it's starting to stick to the pan and brown, use the cooking wine to boil the sticking pieces off and add flavor. Cook until that wine-like smell has evaporated a bit. Turn off the heat, season with the two seasonings. Pull the sweet potato out of the oven, pry it open, and dump a healthy spoonful of the mix into it. Top with peri peri sauce.
 

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I think feb is a good time to catch the early new-me quitters from January.

True. We bought a nearly brand new treadmill and elliptical on craigslist a couple years ago this way.
 

kyuuei

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True. We bought a nearly brand new treadmill and elliptical on craigslist a couple years ago this way.

I keep dreaming of opening a small not-for-profit average-joe's style gym. Basically? Find cheap/free/donated machinery to create a small gym that costs like nothing for people to go to and work out.
 

kyuuei

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Quinoa salad:

Asian Quinoa Salad | Quinoa Salad Recipe | Two Peas & Their Pod

I stole it from this place.. and I adapted the ingredients to what I had on hand. It came out extremely good, and people stole it and ate it all when we brought it out to an event. :)

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped red cabbage
1 cup shelled and cooked edamame
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1 cup diced cucumber

For the dressing:
1/4 cup lite soy sauce or tamari sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped green onion
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/4 teaspoon grated ginger
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Mix that shit up. also, cook the quinoa in a rice cooker first.
 

kyuuei

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Turkey burgers, inspired partly by Skinnytaste's recipe.

Put in the food processor:
- 2 handfuls of baby carrots
- 1 frozen mini-muffin's worth of onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 spoonful of Sambal chili paste
- Generous dollops of hot sauce
- 1 spoonful of oil
- Generous sprinkling (BBQ style) of Uncle Chris's Famous Steak Seasoning
- Generous dollops of Worcestershire sauce

Run that food processor until it's all mixed up or sticking to the sides.

Then dump in a pound of ground turkey, and run it again until it's all paste-y like and well mixed.

Put about 1/4-1/3 cup of bread crumbs and mix it by hand with a spoon until it's well incorporated. Shape into patties.

Medium-low heat, use a decent cooking spray between patties, and 4-6 minutes on each side until the turkey meat is completely cooked through. Also you can grill this, but it's snowing outside, soo the stove top it is.

They came out pretty damn good if I do say so myself.
 

kyuuei

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Slightly adapted but basically this recipe Zucchini "Meatballs" | Skinnytaste to fit what I have in the kitchen.

For the meatballs:
- 2 medium-small zucchini diced fine in a food processor.
- 1 tsp roasted garlic
- 1 cup italian panko
- 1 egg
- A sprinkling of Uncle Chris's Steak Seasoning
- 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (I had some fancy pants stuff that goes in the fridge)
- Salt and pepper

I took the finely diced zucchini (nearly pulverized and muddy feeling) and fried it in a tbsp of oil until it lost a good amount of moisture. (the healthier not-as-fast way to do this is to just drain it in a colander lined with paper towel for a while with a sprinkling of salt) While I let it cool I assembled the rest of the ingredients. Mix around with your hands until well incorporated and crumbly-wet feeling. Then shape them into small meatball sized balls. Put some cooking spray onto aluminum foil on a pan, and line up the meatballs so they have a few cm between each of them for cooking space. Spray the tops of them. Pop them into the oven at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.

They'll brown, and get a little dehydrated--which is good because they'll keep their shape. The inside is still a little moist, and so the meatballs will stand up to putting them into a sauce--like marinara.. or the sauce I made:

- 2 heaping spoonfuls of pepper jelly
- 1 small spoonful of jalapeno mustard
- 1 dash worchestershire sauce
- 1 dash ketchup
- Pinch brown sugar

Gently warmed in the microwave for 10 seconds, stir, and 10 seconds more.

There is a LOT of flavor going on in those meatballs depending on what you use to make them.. italian breadcrumbs + seasoned cheese + seasoning means a lot of zesty-ness. So you can really tone down the sauce if you want.
 

kyuuei

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Cheaterchata is what we've been calling it. Fake, lazy horchata that is delicioso enough to pass until you get to the market.

- 1 part rice milk
- 3 parts vanilla and sweetened almond milk
- 1/3-1 cup sugar or other sweetener depending on your sweet desires there.. you can really skip this entirely if wanted.
- 2 cinnamon sticks + 2 tsp cinnamon
- Optional: 1 vanilla bean, sliced length wise open

Put all of these in a jug, and shake the jug. Let sit in the fridge overnight. Not as 'gritty' as real horchata, but just as creamy and dessert tasting. Fun fact: Horchata is super popular because a lot of central americans have lactose intolerance. Not as high as Asian populations, but it is still a pretty common thing.
 

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A ton of watermelon juice without a juicer:

Cut up watermelon into big chunks and stick in the blender until blended up.
Use a very fine-mesh strainer to strain the liquid of the pulp.
Add in some mint leaves and chill the mixture.

Drink it straight up, or mixed with lemonade.

This sort of recipe is awesome because it turns something great out of something sad--mainly, getting a mealy watermelon. Sometimes markets will sell mealy watermelons cheaper too, so it's a pretty great way of making lemonade out of lemons.. so to speak.

I don't have watermelons yet... but I'm excited for summer when they're sold for almost nothing at the market here.
 

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Cooked a decent spaghetti tonight, and I think I about have the formula I like down...

If I didn't have the meatballs which have egg in them, I'd add in some ground pork to the sauce. Lots of vegetables, but the tomato still takes over everything, and the bread spices lend the majority of the flavoring vs salt.

- Start off with San Marzano (I think that's how you spell it?) whole tomatoes, crush them and cook em slow until they turn into sauce.
- Chopped celery, bell pepper, onion, steamed and crushed carrot, and 5 cloves of roasted garlic go into a pan with 2 tsp of canola oil, cooked until most of the liquid is out of them. Add in broccoli puree and cook until the water is mostly gone.
- Add in Phoenicia's bread dipping spices, red pepper flakes, and parmesean cheese to the veggies, salt, pepper, and two tsp of vanilla infused sugar.
- Mix up the tomato sauce with the veggies.
- Boil the noodles, and spiralize zucchini into noodles and microwave for 1:30.
- Reheat some frozen Zucchini meatballs from the freezer at 325 degrees for 15 minutes, until hot on the inside and toasty.
- Serve with half veggie noodles, half regular noodles, meatballs, and sauce on top. Sprinkle with lemon juice.
 

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Complimentary of Mount Hee.
The only bloody Mary I didn't hate.

1/4 Batch Recipe:
1/2 a handle of vodka
(2) 1/2 gallon bottles of V-8
6 oz bottle of Texas Pete Hot Sauce
4 oz Worcestershire sauce
8 oz lemon juice
1/2 bunch of cilantro
1/4 of a medium horseradish root (grind by hand)
salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning to taste.
 

kyuuei

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Typed this up in healthy habits, but I'm sticking it here now.

Mushroom sweet potato hand pies.

- 6 cans of regular old cheap biscuits. You can go as fancy and whole-wheat-lovely on these as you please. The cheap ones work well though.
- Parchment paper to bake them on.. alternatively, a silicone baking sheet.

The filling:
- 2 cartons of mushrooms
- 1 large sweet potato or 2 small ones, skin on and washed
- 2 stalks of celery roughly.. I just used the odd and end pieces
- 1 onion, peeled
- 4-5 cloves of garlic, I had roasted garlic in the house already but raw garlic is totally fine
- 2 handfuls of baby carrots, or 2 regular carrots
- 1/4th bag of fresh spinach, or 1/4th of a bag of frozen spinach thawed and squeezed dry with a paper towel
- Some white wine and oil of choice

Basically, blend and chop all of these veggies up in a food processor so that they're very finely minced. I just chopped them one at a time, wet to dry, and threw them in the pan as I prepped and chopped.

You basically want to just keep stirring and cooking until much of the moisture is cooked away. When the stuff starts trying to stick to the pan a bit, add slightly more oil if it sticks too much and continue saute until liquid is cooked away from the veggies and you have a nice, pan fried dry-ish mixture. Then splash white cooking wine into it, and let that boil away so that the flavor is infused. Turn off the heat. Season as you'd like.. I used lemon zest and juice, smoked paprika, and chicken Shawarma seasoning. Let this mixture cool off entirely... Either make this a night ahead and stick in the fridge, or just let it rest on the counter. I put it into a metal container and stuck it in an ice bath for a while to speed up the process.

When it's at least cooled off so it won't be too warm to the touch, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. (I have a tiny oven, so I only cooked 5 at a time.. making them in batches while I watched TV.) Take the biscuits, and flatten them with the palm of your hand. Stretch them a bit so that they're about double in size. Then, take the filling and put a spoonful in. You'll be able to tell quickly what is too much filling. You pull the ends over themselves and pinch them shut to make a sort of half-moon dumpling-style shape. Place them all on the pan and cook for 12-15 minutes, until a good deep golden brown is on the top of them.

Then you can eat them as they are (I like Franks Red Hot sweet chili sauce on them) ooorrrrrr you can let those all cool, then freeze them on the pan, then package them up in a freezer bag and reheat them as needed. (Typically reheating from the freezer is 350 degrees for 15 minutes.)
 

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The best, most refreshing iced teas for summertime to me:

- Trader Joe's Christmas season Candy Cane Decaf Green Tea.. It is slightly sweet, slightly minty, and AMAZING. Boil the water, drop 2-4 bags in, and let it sit in the fridge overnight. I have a giant carafe for it, and it's been my wake-up drink.

- Mugicha! Nothing beats barley tea. It's got zero caffeine and has a lovely warm, toasty taste that is perfect cold.. and, it has a hearty flavor, which means it will act a little like coffee if you want creamer in the morning. Stick a few strawberries in it and let it all steep and boom, amazing.

Also, no-work salad I've been eating all week:
- Green onions (the literally only thing I did any work for was chopping a few of these up into each tupperware)
- Box/bag of 50/50 spinach and spring mix greens
- Bag of pre-shredded cabbage purple/green mix
- Matchstick carrots
- Canister of cherry tomatoes
- Tiny cucumbers from trader joe's
- Box of pre-sliced mushrooms

They're all fairly dry ingredients... I just layer the cabbage, carrots, greens, and accessories all on top of one another in tupperwares and.. Boom. All done. This is pretty expensive salad truth be told ($13 total) but the greens are also used in smoothies and I use up every last ingredient all around the same amount of time, making tupperwares of salads ready to eat all at once like that.

I also got an onigiri filling-ready press while in Japan and I was pretty dang happy with the results. Shove rice in, press it flat, stick some ingredients in, wrap it all in nori, the end ready to eat. I'll be trying a sushi-rice powder pretty soon too to see if it can help add some awesome flavoring to the onigiri.
 

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In trying to find online what I bought from Japan I realized... there's none. @_@ I cannot find it online! Which is so bizarre because it seems so much better and more useful than the onigiri molds that are common on amazon and such. I had one of those and it sort of sucked. This press makes a perfect sized onigiri that I have. Definitely will have to buy more next time.

Anyways, summer recipe: Quick pickled onions and cucumbers.

Take a regular old teaspoon from the drawer and make leveled scoops of the following:
- 1/4th worth of pepper, or a generous pinch
- 2 scoops rice wine vinegar
- 2 scoops regular vinegar
- 1 scoop salt
- 1 scoop sugar

Mix together. Throw cucumbers sliced thin and onions sliced into thin half-moons (2:1 ratio) into the mix. Fill the Tupperware you're putting them all in with cold water. Stick in the fridge overnight, or overday.. whatever.

Out comes some pretty tasty pickles! This was my favorite salad my mom made at the house I grew up in. Fond memories of cucumber onion salad.
 

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This came out FAR more badass than I thought it would.

Lemonade Strawberry Icebox Cake:

Put the following ingredients into layers:
- Lemonades.. the girl scout cookies. If you find an off brand of sorts that's fine, but the frosted bottoms of these makes a delicious 'crust' for the cake, gives it substance, and provides the strong lemon taste desired.
- Fresh chopped or frozen chopped strawberries
- Whipped cream
- Any brand of buttery cookie.. you don't want a strong flavor of any sort, just a buttery light crispy cookie. I used a Japanese brand of Moonlight cookies. Asian groceries are pretty full of these style of biscuit-like cookies.
- More whipped cream.

Then let it sit overnight!
 

kyuuei

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Enoki skewers:
- Bamboo Skewers
- Enoki mushrooms (2 pkgs)
- 1 pkg bacon, cut in half

Prep those puppies! - Put the skewers in a cup of water while you work. Cut the roots off of the enoki (about 1 inch worth) and separate into small, edible sections. Cut in half for more bite-sized sections, and separate into small bunches and wrap with the bacon pieces and put them on skewers.

Next step: Prep the cooking surfaces
- Put some broth (any kind of broth really, I've used vegetable broth and bonito-style japanese broth and got similar results) in a large pot (big enough to let the skewers fit into) to boil.
- Fire up the grill if you're grilling! They're fantastic that way. If using propane or the stove top, no need to fire this up until about 2-3 minutes before they're done boiling.
- Prep the basting sauce: Mix together 1 part each of: mirin, soy sauce, dashi, and green onions chopped, and then throw in a tablespoon of sambal sauce. If you lack all of that, simple soy sauce watered down with some white wine or water and drizzled over them will work all the same.

Boil the skewers for approximately 10 minutes until the bacon is technically cooked enough to eat. Baste the skewers in the sauce, and then put them on the grill or in a pan on the stove until the bacon gets a crunchy texture.

These are aaaaamazzzziing treats, the mushrooms and the bacon complement each other so incredibly well, and they're really easy to make especially with two people helping out.

Oh, didn't know you live here.

I like throwing the ninja stars lol

:laugh: I did live like an hour away from the ren fest forever. The past year I've been up in NC.
 

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Cookie dough dip, revisited: I finally perfected the sweetener in it.

- 1 can garbanzo beans or great northern white beans, drained, rinsed very thoroughly and left to dry in the colander.
- 1/2 cup quick oats
- 1/8 - 1/4 cup applesauce
- 1 tblsp coconut oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- pinch salt
- 1/8 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/4 cup dates
- 1/8 cup water

Blend all of this together in the food processor until it is nice a smooth. It'll be a bit goopy starting out, but it will firm up in the fridge as the dates absorb moisture. Add to it after chocolate chips of your choosing (I use guittard because they have a rich dark chocolate flavor and relatively low sugar and calorie count at 63% cocoa) and stir it around. The goopyness means it'll disperse pretty eveningly in the dip easily and firm up into a perfect blend of chips and dip.

Eat with spoon or with salted crackers for a sweet-and-salty crunchy finish.

Optional versions:
- Low sodium black beans and 1 tbsp cocoa powder instead of the garbanzo beans to make a double chocolate brownie dip. this won't look as uniform since the oats are white and it'll look a little mixed versus cookie dough like... but still just as good.
- Chocolate covered cacao nibs instead of chocolate chips
- Nut butter can be swirled in after to give it a chocolate/peanut butter vibe if going with brownie dip.
- Add 1 tsp baking powder after chilling these and bake for 35-40 minutes on 350 degrees for a cookie pie instead of a cold cookie dough dip.
 
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kyuuei

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... Try to re-create the radioactive orange tangerine chicken that I loved so much from Jade Bamboo chinese restaurant in my hometown. Seriously.. it was citrus, spice, savory, and sweet last.

This is the recipe I'm going to try based on The Best Chinese Orange Chicken Recipe | Serious Eats
For the Sauce:
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine (see note above)
2 tablespoons Chinese rice vinegar or distilled white vinegar
3 tablespoons homemade or store-bought low-sodium chicken stock
4 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon roasted sesame seed oil
2 teaspoons grated zest and 1/4 cup juice from 1 orange
1 tablespoon corn starch
4 (2-inch) strips dried orange peel (see note above)
2 teaspoons peanut, vegetable, or canola oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic (about 2 medium cloves)
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger (about one 1-inch piece)
2 teaspoons thinly sliced scallion bottoms (about 1 scallion)

And we'll see how it is from there... maybe compare it to this recipe. The Food Lab Redux: How to Make Orange and Sesame Chicken at Home | Serious Eats


Also, made today: Fresh fried chicken salad
- first ingredient: definitely not fresh, frozen fried chicken tenders... feel free to make those fresh, I got a giant box for $20 from the discount grocery. 4 tenders worth, cooked until crispy. The fresh portion comes from the chicken being warm vs a cold chicken salad. Though it does fine cold.
- Sour cream (2 giant spoonfuls)
- Mustard and kewpie mayo to taste
- Poultry seasoning
- Salt and pepper
- 1 spoonful of dillapeno
- Celery, chopped
- Roasted pistachios
- Chopped quick pickle and onion
- Onion and bell pepper mixture, laid out on a paper towel to thaw out from frozen while the chicken cooks

Mix that shit together and let the flavors meld for an hour, then coat the chicken chopped up in it.
 

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Basic Baked Chicken:

One oven-safe pot with lid. I use a clay-fired pot glazed with protective stuff that's naturally nonstick. You can definitely just use a pyrex dish with aluminum foil on top and nonstick spray.

- 4 chicken thighs
- A sauce of your choice. This can be as simple as pats of butter or oil drizzled, or you can add a jar of a random marinade from the store.. or make your own basic sauce with some mustard of choice, seasoning, a spoonful each of sugar and salt, pepper, a bit of acid (vinegar, lemon juice, orange juice, lime juice..), a bit of water or broth, and stir together and drizzle on top. No real science to this, just taste it--if it tastes yummyish but a bit raw then it's probably good.
- Thinnly sliced carrots, onions, mushrooms, and celery as much as you'd like.. I just fill my pot up to the top with them all, and get about 2 really fat carrots, 1 onion, 2 stalks of celery and 1 package of mushrooms into it. Just layer these right on top of the chicken thighs.

Let this sit in the fridge covered for about an hour, or overnight if prepping this for the next day. I let mine sit overnight as I was just prepping this while cooking another meal. When ready, preheat oven to 375 degrees (since I had mine in the fridge, I just stick the container in the cold oven and let it preheat with the oven so it isn't cold cold surfaces on hot ones) and bake for 1 hour. Chicken comes out super tender, steamed and bone-falling-out soft. Slosh the veggies in the brothy sauce created from the chicken cooking and serve over warm rice.
 

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I truly wish I could find the style of onigiri press I bought from Japan online. It is far superior to everything you find in the US. Makes little indentations in each 'side' for filling, and you 'flop' the two pieces into one, and it comes out of the bottom half of it so there's no trying to pop anything out of the mold. Sooo much easier.

Onigiri Leftover Meals to go:
- Leftover chinese food meats and vegetables with sauce all over them
- Tuna, mixed with your favorite toppings
- Rice, cooked, with a bit of rice wine vinegar, salt, sugar, and pepper added to it
- Nori

Let the cooked rice cool, or if it's leftover rice let it come back up to room temp.

Meanwhile, use a mini food chopper or food processor to finely mince up the tuna salad and the leftover Chinese food.

Place a piece of nori down, and set the mold on top. Place the rice into the mold, and press down so that two pieces of onigiri are made. Spoon in filling, and press the two pieces together and use the nori to wrap the whole thing up into a perfect little Japanese rice ball.

These kept in the fridge for 5 days easily, so I made enough to have for lunches and dinners for the week.
 
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