Spicy Korean Pork and Rice Cakes

Like most recipes that start off as Blue Apron meals, when this one showed promise as a keeper I made some modifications to it to suit my family's tastes and the ingredients that I can find in my local grocery stores (with perhaps one exception, but I'll get to that).

This recipe was the first time I had cooked baby bok choy at home, and it's quickly become one of my favorite vegetables for pan satueeing. It's not bitter, has a wonderful texture (not stringy!), and looks pretty.

Korean rice cakes may be something you haven't seen before in your grocery store. The closest store that carries them in my area is an hour away, but fortunately a local friend had picked some up last time she was there and graciously gave me a bag. I've also seen them on Amazon. If you don't have them, the best substitute I can think of is to serve the dish over a bed of rice.

The addition of creme fraiche (or the substitute) may seem a little weird in this dish, but it does a great job of bringing the sauce together. It's a technique that I see Blue Apron use a lot, and it works. It really elevates the dish to another level. The sauce clings to the meat and vegetables and gives it a smoothness on your tongue it won't otherwise have.

What you'll need

1 lb ground pork
1 package rice cakes (~13-14 ounces)
2 bok choy heads, roughly chopped
2 Tbsp Creme Fraiche (can substitute 1:1 sour cream:cream cheese, or leave out)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 inch fresh ginger minced, or substitute ground ginger or 5 spice seasoning to taste
1 Tbsp soy glaze or 2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp gochujang (or 2-3 Tbsp "asian garlic chili sauce" or sirracha) to taste
*1/4 cup savory black bean-chile sauce
Sesame seeds and/or chives for garnish

*If you don't have this sauce, I've used hoisin sauce instead and it works very well! The dish ends up sweeter and it's not hte same flavor profile, but it still works! The hoisin/chili/soy sauce is a combination my family loves and I'm quick to substitute it as needed in recipes.

Git 'er Done

Boil salted water (like you would do for pasta) for the rice cakes. When it's at a roiling boil, add the cakes and cook until tender, drain well.

Combine glaze with 1/2 c. water (or soy sauce and 1/4 c. water), black bean sauce (or hoisin), and chili sauce in a small bowl.

Cook the pork in a skillet until browned and cooked through.

Add the white parts (stems) of the bok choy stems, garlic, and ginger. Cook until bok choy is slightly soft.

Check your water. Is it boiling yet? Add your rice cakes to boiling water, cook 2-3 minutes until tender.

Add sauce and green parts of bok choy to the skillet. Turn the heat down and stir to combine and heat through. Taste and adjust the sauce to taste.

Add the cooked rice cakes to the pan and stir to combine. Remove from heat. Add the creme fraiche (or substitute) and stir until blended.

Garnish with sesame seeds and/or chives.

Notes
You do NOT want to overcook the rice cakes or let them sit there congealing as the rest of your dish is cooking. For me, starting the water boiling as I'm washing and chopping bok choy, and have the pork browning in the skillet is about right.

Easy egg breakfast

I guess if I was being fancy I could call them "crustless quiches", but then you might think they were more effort to make than they actually are, and skip over this so-easy recipe, and miss out.


Pictured: Purple onion, spinach, and cheddar cheese egg cups hot from the oven

Everyone who sees my little egg muffins has the same question - are eggs edible after you freeze them, and then microwave them? ABSOLUTELY. There are whole freezer aisles that are devoted to this exact truth. Are they as good as fresh out of the oven? No. If you use a toaster oven instead of a microwave to reheat are they better? Yes. Does the microwave do a perfectly adequate job? YES. From fridge or freezer, I can pop these babies in the microwave and have a hot yummy breakfast in minutes, as I juggle getting myself and a toddler ready for the day and out the door.

The thanks for this recipe/concept goes to my sister in law Ardella who gave me a whole platter of these things after I gave birth to my daughter. They were the perfect snack in the first couple weeks, as I got hungry at all times of the day and night but wanted REAL food, not some sort of processed junk.


Pictured: cold egg cups (see how the middles sink in after they cool?) ready to heat and heat. The one on the right has been cut so you can see the chunk of ricotta cheese! This on is a spinach, bacon, and ricotta cheese variation.


What you need

• About a dozen eggs
• Splash of milk into the scrambled egg mixture, just for luck
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Fillings/add-ins. Reserve them in a separate bowl, do NOT add to scrambled egg mixture. 

How to get 'er done

• Preheat oven to 350*F
• Pour equal amounts of egg into a GREASED (I use spray) nonstick muffin tin (or use foil liners)
• Add fillings to each tin.
• Cook until centers are set. This is usually about 18-20 minutes.

Fillings

I find that the magic combination is 1 vegetable, 1 cheese, and 1 meat. There's a reason that most frozen egg products have a very tasty flavorful meat added in like bacon or sausage - it helps compensate for the slight hit of flavor and texture that the egg takes when subjected to the freezer and microwave. If you will be serving these fresh, you will have more lee-way. However, I still think that choosing an average of 3 filling add-ins is about perfect. Here's some of my favorite combinations: 

• 1/2 slice of bacon, a couple fresh spinach leaves, chunk or shredded cheddar cheese
• spoon of ricotta cheese, fresh sage leaves cut up, bacon
• smoked salmon, capers, spoon of ricotta cheese
• sauteed zuchinni, mozzerrella, olives
• Canned green chilis, chipotle hot sauce, cheddar cheese, minced purple onion
• sausage, shredded carrot, swiss cheese cube

Pictured: a pan of onion, spinach, and cheddar cheese egg cups ready to go into the oven. These cooked down in the cups pictured at the beginning of this post. Without the meat add-in, I used a little Penzey's sandwich sprinkle on top to make sure these had a good seasoned flavor. 

Making Ahead

The egg muffins reheat well from fridge or freezer with a couple minutes in the microwave. For a really stellar result, allow to thaw in fridge overnight and reheat in a toaster oven.

Hints

• Eggs like to stick, so make sure the non-stick coating on your muffin pan is in very good shape in addition to oiling the cups, or use foil muffin cup liners. I think the key to good muffins is to NOT add the fillings to the egg mixture. Instead, add it individually to the muffins tins AFTER you pour the egg mixture.
• I find that about 1 egg per muffin tin is perfect. I use 12 eggs for my 12 muffin tin pan. Scramble in a bowl. If you are going to add a LOT of "other" fillings to your muffins, reduce to 10 eggs for a 12 tin pan.
• If you are not using a seasoned meat for one of you fillings, consider seasoning your egg muffins more heavily. 

Pasta Fagioli

Pasta "fazool" is my husband's favorite Olive Garden soup. Always looking to expand my very meager homemade soup options, I offered to try and replicate it at home. The result was a soup that even I, a non-soup sort of person, could get excited about. Easy enough to make after work for dinner, good enough to eat for left overs, and I've heard it freezes well (but I've never personally gotten to freeze it, since in this household between lunches and dinners it's gobbled up within just a few days).

For those of you that haven't had it before and need an idea of what this is going to look and taste like (since apparently unless you are a pro food photographer, soup is never ever going to look good in a photo), it's a tomato and broth based soup that is built on mire pox, with the ground meat, beans, pasta, and vegetables all in such a perfect balance so that it is impossible to decide which is the dominant element.


What you need

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound italian sausage (I find that substituting sausage for all or part of ground meat in many of my recipes gives a more flavorful result and it's not as hard to get a good finished well-seasoned flavor in the end.)
• 2 carrots, small diced 
• 3 celery sticks, small diced
• 1 medium onioin, small diced
• 2 gloves of garlic, minced
• 2-14 oz cans tomato sauce
• 1-14 oz can diced tomatoes
• 2-14 oz cans chicken broth
• Either an addition 14 oz can of tomato sauce OR chicken broth, depending on taste. I prefer to use an extra can of broth to lighten the soup a tad. 
• 1-14 oz can kidney beans
• 1-14 oz can small white beans
• 1 cup of small noodles - I like to use the ditalini pasta type. 
• Fresh Parsley - chopped, small handful or about 3 tablespoons
• Dried italian herbs to taste - like oregano, majoram, or penzey's sandwich sprinkle. If you use the italian sausage for all or part of your meat the exact seasoning you do will be less critical. 
• Optional - 1/2 c. of water to thin the soup

How to get 'er done

• Choose a bigger pot than you think you will need
• Cook the meat, and then remove meat.
• Cook the carrot/celery/onion until soft. About 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. 
• Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, broth, and herbs. Simmer for a minimum of 15 minutes. In the meantime cook the pasta in a separate pot, and then drain. 
• Add the meat, pasta, beans and heat through. 
• Add the parsley just before serving. 

Hints and Notes

My version is a touch heavier on the meat than it needs to be because my husband likes it that way. I think you could eliminate about 1/2 the meat and still have it be very tasty.

Especially if you want to get this soup cooked and served quickly, cutting your vegetables small is the key. They will actually cook and be soft after sauteeing and minimum simmering. If you are vegetable adverse like my husband, consider shredding the carrots so that they are invisible as possible - but they still add to the mire pox base flavor. Don't leave them out! So far just cutting them up into very small cubes and making sure they are absolutely not crunchy works. The soup's flavor improves when kept in the fridge overnight, and he no longer noticed the carrots after it sat. This soup would probably gain that extra flavor without having to sit in the fridge if I planned ahead simmered it for much longer, or used a pressure cooker, or used a crock pot......but honestly I think the flavor is perfectly adequate the first day without a long simmer, and I'm a keep it simple person.

Joelle's Wilted Kale and Roasted-Potato Winter Salad

This hearty dish is more of a filling side dish, or could even serve as a main dish, rather than what I think of as a "salad". When one of my best friends in vet school gave me this recipe I did not consider kale edible, and I wasn't sure what tahini was. Now, I keep a container of tahini in the fridge just so I can make this recipe on a whim, and it remains the best lemon-tahini dressing I've ever had.

I have done some variations - substitute roasted broccoli for kale, or make it without cheese or substitute cheddar, or substitute roasted cauliflower for potatoes. They are all good, but in my mind the original remains the best.

Pictured: The time I made it with broccoli instead of kale, and with cheddar cheese :). There may even be some way-ward purple onions in with the potatoes!!!! 

Joelle's Wilted Kale and Roasted-Potato Winter Salad

Makes 4-6 servings depending on how whether you actually know the weight of your produce that is being used (I don't usually), and whether you are serving as a main or side course. 

What you need: 

• 2 pounds yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces 
• 1/3 cup olive oil OR a drizzle (see notes and hints below) 
• 4 garlic cloves - 3 thinly sliced and 1 minced 
• 1/3 c. grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1/4 c. well-stirred tahini 
• 2 tablespoons of water
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice  
• 3/4 pounds kale, stems and center ribs discarded and leaves very thinly sliced crosswise 

How to get 'er done:

• Preheat the oven to 450*F
• Toss potatoes with oil - I use a drizzle of oil instead of measuring 1/3 cup. Season to taste with salt and pepper and spread evenly on a cookie sheet or other large pan. I recommend using parchment paper to keep them from sticking. Roast about 10 minutes, then stir in 3 sliced garlic cloves, and roast for about 10 minutes. The potatoes should almost be done at this point. Sprinkle with cheese and roast until cheese is melted and golden in spots, about 5 more minutes. 
• While the potatoes are roasting, make the dressing. Because of the small amount of dressing, and because it tends to thicken, I find it hard to get it out of a blender. I prefer to use a small whisk in a large bowl and give my arm a bit of a work out. However you choose to do it -  puree tahini, water, lemon juice, minced garlic, and 1/2 tsp of salt until smooth. Add more water if it's too thick. This dressing tends to thicken up as it sits, you will probably need to add a little more water than you think. 
• Dump the potatoes in a large serving dish including any garlic and oil in the pan, once they are done. Add the kale and the tahini sauce and toss. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

Making Ahead

I've frozen individual portions of this "salad" and let thaw in the fridge with good results, as long as I use a "sturdy" vegetable like broccoli, or don't mind the kale getting a little soft. If you substitute vegetables such as spinach for the kale, I don't think it would freeze well. I prefer this salad hot so I warm leftovers in the microwave.

Hints and Notes

• Yes, yukon gold potato texture is best for this dish. I think 2 pounds is about 4-5 medium sized yukon golds. I usually cut up potatoes until I have an even single layer on a cookie sheet for roasting,
• Especially if you are using cheese, this makes everything REALLY greasy IMO. So, my advice would be to "use a drizzle" as described in method section.
• I almost always use pre-prepared garlic and use whatever I have in the fridge - usually minced - and don't worry about slices or preparing cloves in different manners. 
• I prefer the shredded Parmigiano cheese. I've also made this dish without cheese and it still tastes great if you want to do this dairy free.
• Tahini separates and thick in the fridge, where it should be stored after opening. Leaving it out on the counter for an hour or two before you use it will help make it easier to stir and use.
• 3 tablespoons of lemon juice is about 1 lemon's worth. If you want to serve with lemon wedges (I usually don't), then have another lemon available.
• I consider 3/4 pound of kale = the bunch of kale that is sold twisty-tied together at the grocery store. There is a trick to getting the stems/center rib separated from the leaves. Hold the stem with one hand, and then place the thumb and forefinger of your other hand on either side of stem, where the leaves attach and then draw the stem away in a smooth motion, while strippping the leaves from the stem with your thumb/forefinger. If the stem breaks, repeat the motion until the entire leaf has been stripped).