From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Very versatile bread rolls

OK, so I don't have any pictures of the making of this, and I apologize -- I'm so scared of bread and baking that I wasn't at all sure if it would actually work.
But it did!
Oh hurray happy day, it did!

Of course, I can't really take any credit. The recipe is from a recent issue of Bon Appetit's e-mail newsletter, and I followed it pretty faithfully. I didn't even make any adjustments for high altitude (which actually I should have; the dough ended up being too liquid and would have resulted in an easier-to-use ingredient and cleaner look if I'd added more flour).
I also didn't have any black sesame seeds, so I just added a few extra regular sesame seeds...but I didn't need to; the final product has a nice sesame flavor but could have used maybe a few fewer seeds. I also added salt and pepper to the filling, but that salt ended up being a bit too much when added to the salt in the dough. The pepper was good, though.

I've eaten entirely too many of these appetizer-ready rolls for dinner tonight, and have realized how versatile they'd be. I'm anticipating making this recipe again quite often, substituting in for the filling hot pepper flakes, feta cheese, chopped pine nuts, pressed garlic, sundried tomatoes and any number of other tasty things.

If you didn't click the link above, here is the recipe from Bon Appetit:

Ingredients
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons Kosher salt, divided
2 teaspoons sugar, divided
1 3/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled, cubed
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped scallions
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds
3 tablespoons olive oil plus more for bowl and brushing

ingredient info:
Black sesame seeds can be found at better supermarkets and at Asian and Indian markets.

Preparation
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour 1/2 cup warm water (105°-115°) into a small bowl. Sprinkle yeast, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon sugar over; let stand until mixture bubbles, about 10 minutes.
Place flour, butter, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1 teaspoon sugar in bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook attached. Rub in butter with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat in egg, yolk, and yeast mixture, scraping down sides.
Knead on medium speed until dough is soft and smooth, about 5 minutes. Form dough into a ball; transfer to a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Meanwhile, combine scallions and cilantro in a food processor and pulse to finely chop. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl; stir in all sesame seeds and 3 tablespoons oil and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350°. Roll dough into a 18x9" rectangle. Spoon scallion mixture evenly onto center and spread mixture to corners of dough. Working from one short edge, roll dough rectangle into a cylinder. Cut cylinder into 3/4" dough swirls. Transfer dough swirls to prepared baking sheet; brush with oil. Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Very versatile bread rolls

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Cheap but delicious tilapia

Yeah. I got laid off on June 13.

Not much to say about that, except I understand industry-wise why it happened, it totally sucked, and there might be a nice silver lining in that I was planning to get a freelancing career started anyway so this could be the kick in the pants I need to do it sooner rather than later.

Another possible silver lining? I've been thinking about learning how to bake bread for several years now, and even got an excellent cookbook/explanatory book about it a few years ago for Christmas that I haven't used as much as I'd hoped. So with time on my hands, a good instruction manual, a lot of fear and a vanishingly small amount of pastry self-confidence, I may move forward with this project soon. Never fear, I'll keep you posted if I do.

Today, though, I cooked what may be the cheapest fully realized dinner of my life (assuming meals of ramen and reheated chicken wings aren't a fully realized dinner, that is).
It started when I went to Atkinsons' in Bellevue, which has quite the section devoted to those whose appetites are of the Hispanic persuasion. Whole (cleaned, scaled) tilapia were on sale. I bought two...for $2.42. Yep, you read that right; I could have bought four and still spent less than a Subway sandwich. How could I resist that, especially after having seen some excellent depictions of the cooking of whole fish on Top Chef and other such shows?

I pulled one out of the freezer two days ago, and have been researching recipes ever since -- although I have a small amount of whole-fish experience that primarily consists of catching, gutting and grilling little lake trout, these tilapia were slightly frightening. They did have clear eyeballs though, which I've heard is a good indication that the fish is fresh (or freshly frozen). And it didn't smell "fishy" even two days after defrosting (though I did cut the fish open farther than the way it came to me, because the open space wasn't big enough to hold much of the filling I had chosen for this first experiment -- I recommend a sharp fillet knife for this).

So this is the recipe I decided to start with. Because if I'm ever in a kitchen without butter, garlic and onions, shoot me. And I'm growing flatleaf parsley out back (it survived the frost that killed my tomatoes and peppers). I made a few substitutions, like the "tuscan-style" herbed butter+olive oil mixture I bought accidentally a few weeks ago, and oh, twice or three times the garlic. I was suspicious the garlic would be too much when I smelled it cooking, but actually the raw Vidalia onions I used were more prominent in the final product's flavor profile than the garlic. And can you really ever have too much garlic?
I will say that, for aesthetics, the broiling is pretty important. Though the fish was fully cooked when it came out of the 400-degree oven, it still looked like it did when it went in -- broiling gave it the lovely browned bubbliness you expect from some properly cooked fish.

As a side, I cooked some jasmine rice in our rice cooker, and some black rice on the stove, with a bit of S&P and butter. Topped the cooked fish with a little fresh chopped cilantro and a final light sprinkling of salt, and...

...it was *really* good. I like tilapia's ability to take on the flavor of whatever you cook it with -- and I'm already plotting what I'll do with the other fish waiting in the freezer -- but seriously? Onion, garlic, butter, lemon and parsley on fish? How could that NOT be good? You do have to watch out for the bones, including both ribs and backbone, but they're pretty big so unless you eat super-fast or unregarding for unsavory bits they shouldn't be a problem.

I think there are more $1.21 whole tilapia in my future.

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Cheap but delicious tilapia

Sasha's Kitchen: Asian-Style Scallion Cilantro Pancakes

My mom recently sent me a wonderful new cookbook, but a women whose gardening books she had read, Sarah Raven, called Fresh From the Garden. The book focuses on fresh uses of seasonal, garden fresh ingredients and their uses in delicious seasonal recipes. So far, I have read the recipes for spring and winter and there's so many I want to try. The scallion/cilantro pancakes and rhubarb cardamom chutney were both delicious, and my husband and mom (cooking together for me) also tried a summer vegetable risotto that was a loose variation on the recipe in her book. Each of these three recipes were spectacular. This might just be my favorite new cookbook that I have tried in a long time! Don't skip out on Sarah's dipping sauce either - its the perfect match as I love sesame oil!

Scallion Cilantro Pancakes (from Sarah Raven)
makes 12 five inch pancakes or six eight inch pancakes - I doubled the recipe below for more because they were so good!

1/2 cup unbleached flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 small red chile, thinly sliced (i used 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes instead)
pinch of ground black pepper
4 drops of sesame oil
canola oil for frying
5-6 scallions diced (green parts only)
small bunch of cilantro, freshly chopped

Dipping sauce
3 T soy sauce
2 T rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 T freshly chopped fresh cilantro

Put the flours, salt, egg and egg yolk and 1/4 cup of water, red pepper flakes, and sesame oil in a bowl and whisk together.  Allow to stand for thirty minutes at room temperature. Chop the scallions and cilantro and set aside.

combine the soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil for the sauce and stir in the sesame seeds. Also add the reserved white parts of the scallions left over from the pancake recipe.

Heat a teaspoon of canola oil in an eight inch nonstick pan over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Spoon in 1/2 T of the batter, tilting the pan to spread it over the bottom. Scatter the scallions and cilantro over the top, gently pressing them with a spatula. Fry until the underside is pale golden, about two minutes. Turn over and cook another minute or so. Transfer to a piece of parchment paper while you prepare the other pancakes. Serve right away with dipping sauce.

Sasha's Kitchen: Asian-Style Scallion Cilantro Pancakes

Sasha's Kitchen: Indian-Spiced Hanukkah Potato Latkes

Tonight is the second night of Hanukkah, the eight day long Jewish festival of lights. Traditionally, Jews make potato latkes - basically fried grated potatoes to celebrate Hanukkah. While traditional latkes are fun, I like to make my potato pancakes for the holiday with a bit of a twist. Last year I made these sweet potato chipotle latkes with Swedish lingonberries, which are still my favorite. We made those for Thanksgiving as the sweet potato side dish and they were amazing, as usual. Click here for the recipe.

This year for Hanukkah, however, I decided to do my latkes with an Indian spice variation, inspired by Floyd Cardoz's recipe from Tabla. Sadly, Tabla is closing its doors soon after a great run in New York, but its recipes live on. Anyhow, based on their recipe, I loosely crafted my own using my favorite Indian spices. You can find my inspiration recipe here. My changes - I prefer it with a couple eggs, added the cumin and left out the chat masala.

Both of these recipes are reasonably healthy if you fry them in Canola Oil, as I did - or at least a lot healthier than they would otherwise be! Happy Hanukkah!

Sasha's Indian Inspired Potato Latkes
4 large Idaho potatoes
2 eggs
2 Macintosh Apples
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 cup diced fresh cilantro
2 T grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup blue cheese, crumbled
pepper to taste
1/2 of a diced jalapeno pepper (optional- I left it out this time)
Canola oil for frying

First, grate the potatoes. Then, peel and grate the apples and mix in the grated apple mush with the potatoes.  Mix in the grated ginger, cumin, coriander, eggs, and diced cilantro. Stir in the blue cheese crumble, and the diced jalapeno if you choose to add it. Allow the canola oil (about 1/3 of a cup to start) to heat up in the pan and then fry the latkes in the oil on both sides until done, cooked through and browned.

How should you serve these? The best way would probably be with an Indian chutney, maybe slightly on the spicy side. I didn't feel like making chutney tonight, so I used some Fig-Pear jam from Hurd Orchards, with a little bit of sour cream, which was also a delicious combination. Yum! The spices were great with the potatoes and a bit of apple - it really jazzed up a holiday tradition.

Sasha's Kitchen: Indian-Spiced Hanukkah Potato Latkes

Sasha's Kitchen: Southwestern Chicken With Spinach-Cilantro Sauce

This recipe is a very tasty, easy chicken dish which I learned to make from Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook. A somewhat similar version is served at his restaurant Mesa Grill. It is on page 140 of his cookbook. The main difference between my version and Bobby Flay's version is the type of chicken we use. Bobby uses bone on, skin-on chicken breast haves. I do not, but instead use skinless, boneless chicken breasts.

Personally, I prefer to use either Empire kosher chicken breasts or Bell & Evans chicken breasts and cook the chicken in a grill pan.

The first step is to prepare the spice mixture - if you make extra, as I usually do, I save it in a Ziploc for the next time I make the recipe.

Spice Rub (similar to Bobby Flay's cookbook)
1 1/2 T ground cinnamon
1 1/2 T ancho chile powder
1 1/2 T pasilla chile powder (I can not find this spice and have been using regular chile powder; if you are reading this and know where to buy it or want to send me some, let me know)
1 1/2 T ground cumin
1 1/2 T ground coriander
1 1/2 T ground ginger
1 1/2 T sugar
1 T garlic powder
1 T onion powder
1 T salt
1/2 T black pepper (I prefer less than Bobby's recipe, with some testing of this)
1/2 T ground cloves
1/2 T fennel seeds
1/2 T ground allspice
1/2 tsp chile de arbol
1/2 tsp cayenne (you can use 1/4 tsp if you prefer)

Now that you have taken out ever single spice in your spice rack, mix and use the spice mixture to coat the chicken breasts. I usually prepare two packages of chicken breasts which is enough for two nights dinner. The cook the chicken in a grill pan. If you are not confident that the chicken is cooked through, finish cooking in the oven.

Cilantro-Spinach Sauce (also from p. 140 of Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill book)
2 cups fresh cilantro
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1 small shallot, diced
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 cup spinach (I prefer more than Bobby Flay's recipe, again with some testing)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 T honey
salt and pepper to taste

Combine the cilantro, pumpkin seeds, shallot, garlic, vinegar and spinach in a food processor with 1/2 cup water. Blend and then slowly add olive oil, honey, salt and pepper and blend until the mixture has emulsified. This sauce tastes great on the chicken - it is quite smooth and creamy and is a favorite in my house. Bobby Flay's cookbook has a lot of great recipes and I really learned a lot about cooking from working with this cookbook. It is definitely a worthwhile purchase.

Sasha's Kitchen: Southwestern Chicken With Spinach-Cilantro Sauce