Fat Kid Friday: Birthday Edition (mega post)

This annoying little thing called work has been interfering with my posting frequency. Harumph.

To catch up a little bit, I thought I'd combine a few events into one mega post...the birthday edition.

First up, the celebratory dinner for my beloved Shukmei's birthday:

Stuffed chicken breast, zesty cocktail meatballs and creamed spinach.

The stuffed chicken breast recipe was pretty elementary. I pounded a chicken breast, filled it with stuffing (corn bread, in this instance), rolled it up and secured it with a toothpick, covered with a sour cream-based sauce and baked at 375 degrees for a little over an hour (more or less depending on your stove strength).

I shall never give up my recipe for my basic meatballs, but the marinade I put atop them (at the behest of Shuky's bf Frank) is as simple as ketchup, cayenne, hot sauce and grape jelly. I'd like to take this time to remind y'all that I grew up south of the mason-dixon - therefore, I have a special fondness for trash-tastic grub upon occasion.

The creamed spinach was a bit of a let down. I used this recipe from Emeril, but I have to say it fell short. I was later told by one of my clients that the key is to use a little duck or chicken fat.

Nonetheless, I think Shuky was pleased.

Next up, we have a Red Velvet Cake (buttercream frosting, not cream cheese) made for Arie's birthday:

As you can see, I don't have a future in cake calligraphy.

It was accompanied by dill cole slaw, (faux) crab cakes and buffalo wings.

And finally, today is my baby Cannoli's 12th birthday. She is a sprightly, beautiful l'il thing, with a voracious appetite (for both life and food).

I made her a lamb roast (didn't photograph so well, but I prepared it in traditional fashion with mint, lemon, cumin, coriander, garlic and cayenne). She ate two hearty plates, could have eaten more . I also made some greek-style taboule, made hellenic by including some cucumber and feta.

In lieu of cake, she partook in baklawa (from the amazing Damascus Bakery on Atlantic Ave) and ice cream. I know dogs aren't supposed to eat dairy - luckily, she has no idea she is one.

Also, tomorrow is my friend Rie's birthday, so I'd like to wish her a happy one. Rie and I once attempted (and failed) to make a cheesecake in our dorm room in Chinatown many moons ago. We ended up just eating the cream cheese and sugar from the tub. It ain't called fat kid friday for nothin'... :)

Fat Kid Friday: Move over, Pulino's!

It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you, without some tasty treats to get fat to... :)

Pulino's breakfast pizza (as tweeted by Adam Platt):

My breakfast pizza (consumed for dinner):

In ridiculous BK quasi hipster fashion, I used veggie bacon instead of the real stuff. Basic pizza dough (slightly misshapen, don't judge me)...ricotta salata, parmesan and feta, tomato basil sauce and a baked egg on top. Beat that, McNally. Ha.

It's good to be back :) Stay tuned..time to play catch-up.

Fat Kid Friday: Eat your heart out, McD's Filet o' Fish.

Even as a child, the item I enjoyed the most on the McDonald's menu was the Filet o' Fish sandwich. I often lamented that you couldn't get one in a happy meal. Of course, because it's lent, Mickey D's is offering the tasty little bastards for 2/$2. As you may have noticed, it was the snowpocolypse outside today, so there was no chance I was going to trek to go get one, or the offer for two...or four.

Instead, I decided to do my own semi-tropical take the beloved filet.

Fast food is all about special, secret, super-duper sauces, right? I started to think about flavors I enjoy with fish. I like spice, I like lemon, I like things mayonnaise based. I mixed mayo with plenty of hot sauce, a dollop of ketchup, a squirt of lemon and a healthy sprinkle of Goya con azafron. Then, I chopped up a mango into thin slices.

I just purchased a nice, fresh demi-baguette of seeded Italian bread. While baking breaded whitefish in the oven for about 20 minutes, I sliced it and slathered my secret sauce on both sides. I laid down a base of mango. When the fish was ready, put it atop the mango, covered it with MORE sauce and it was ready to mangia.

Spicy, sweet, creamy and crunchy. I might just have another...now. If only I could get that McD's french fry recipe right...

Fat Kid Friday: Egg rolls that look like hot pockets + a (healthy!) Lenten delight

Since it's Lent and I can't eat meat on Fridays, nor can I have my beloved sweets, Fat Kid Friday has become a little trickier. No s'mores can be had, no cakes can be baked, no juicy lamb burgers can be grilled. What to do...what to do...

Inspired by the phyllo dough in my freezer and my newfound love and appreciation for fake crab (I'm allergic, remember, I would do the real thing if I could), I decided to fashion makeshift oven-baked egg rolls. Very Rachael Ray of me.

In my head, it seemed like it would be an easy task. In actuality, I don't appear to have a future in Asian fusion cuisine.

I took out the phyllo dough. I unrolled it. I brushed a layer with butter. Added another layer, then more butter. I repeated this about six times until I had a phyllo base that seemed sturdy. For the filling, I mixed imitation crab with shredded cabbage and carrots, low sodium soy sauce, oriental 5 spice and a little red wine vinegar. I placed a hearty spoon-full in the middle of my phyllo and rolled it up into a cigar shape. I repeated this process several more times, placing the rolls on a baking dish and brushing them one last time with even more butter. After preheating the oven to 350 degrees, I put 'em in and baked the suckers for about 35 minutes, until golden brown. When they went in, they looked like a reasonable facsimile of an egg roll...

...when they came out, they looked like hot pockets. Served with a little sweet & sour sauce, they did manage to taste somewhat like egg rolls.

To round out the meal (and make amends to my arteries), I also made this Stir-fried Tofu with Red Cabbage and Winter Squash from the NY Times. It behaved and turned out the way I wanted it to.

Some changes to the recipe - no corn starch for the sauce; no peanut or canola oil, only sesame; red wine vinegar instead of rice wine and more ginger, a lot more. I also cut down the proportions to feed about two...or just me. This former fat kid always ate her veggies :)

Fat Kid Friday: Breakfast for Dinner with Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

Truth be told, I'm not such a pancake person. My mother never made them and I can count on one hand the number of times I've eaten pancakes outside. Curiously, all such occasions took place while on road trips in the "south" (which, to my parents, meant Virginia Beach - any further and you might as well call the klan and announce your coordinates! or something like that).

Anyway, earlier this week I looked in the fridge and realized a had a tub of ricotta that I needed to use ASAP, lest it go to waste. My first inclination was to make a Lemon-Ricotta cheesecake, which certainly would have been chub-tastic, but then I stumbled upon Bobby Flay's recipe for Lemon Ricotta Pancakes. It spoke to me. It said...you're somewhat less of a fat ass if you eat me instead of a giant cheesecake.

Who am I to argue?

Pretty freakin' good. I made a few changes to Bobby's recipe. 1 - I used whole wheat flour. Not bad, but next time I'd use half whole wheat, half pastry, me thinks. 2 - no berries or lemon curd. I spaced out when grocery shopping. I did, however, top them with a generous serving of maple syrup, butter and sugar.

There are probably three left and writing about them makes me want to raid the fridge RIGHT NOW. Must. Ward. Off. Impending. Obesity.

Fat Kid Friday: Takeout Made-In

Since I was a little, Friday has always felt like takeout (or delivery) day. Every Friday, my mom would get off work and then she and I would either go somewhere to pickup food or we'd go to the toy store and then go home and order delivery. My favorite thing to get was spinach stuffed pizza. Or a meatball sub. Or sweet and sour chicken. Or a shawarma and french fries. Yeah, you can see why I was fat kid.

Anyway, today I was having that takeout craving but since I just bought a ton of groceries to survive this apocalyptic blizzard they're predicting for Brooklyn, I felt it would be a waste to order out. I had a taste for Thai, but Udom would have to get my business another night. On the menu? Tom Kha and Thai Noodles and Beef with Peanut Sauce.

Okay, admittedly, I didn't make the Tom Kha from scratch. I bought a can of Amy's Thai Coconut Soup. It was alright. I added a little lime juice and hot sauce to spruce it up. I would have liked more mushroom and tofu and in the future, I'm going to add more veggies and a little brown rice to make it heartier like this ingenious individual. Still, Amy's did the trick for a last minute craving.

My Noodles and Beef were super-simple to make and the recipe follows below. If I'd had rice noodles or soba, I would have used them, but semolina never fails. Next time around, I'll add some green beans and asparagus to give the illusion of healthiness, as well :)

Thai Noodles and Beef with Peanut Sauce (for 2)

Ingredients

4 ounces angel hair (or regular spaghetti, soba, rice noodles, etc.)

Thai Peanut Sauce:

1 cup reduced-sodium beef broth

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon peanut butter

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon hot sauce

1 teaspoon lime juice

Beef:

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

2 tablespoons garlic

1 medium red bell pepper

1/2 pound lean beef steak, cut into strops

2 eggs

Directions

Cook the noodles until al dente. Drain and transfer to bowl.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the sauce ingredients until well blended and bring to a boil. Once the sauce boils, turn heat down to medium and let simmer for 10 minutes.

Heat the sesame oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the bell pepper, ginger, garlic and beef, cook for about 3 minutes, continuously stirring. Add eggs one at a time and scramble with the rest of the mixture, stirring frequently to not burn. Add 1 cup of the peanut sauce and simmer until the beef is cooked through, about 3 minutes.

Toss remaining peanut sauce with noodles. Serve beef, peppers and eggs over noodles in bowl.

Enjoy! Stay warm in the snow tonight, Brooklyn.

(not so) Fat Kid Friday: Baked Mac 'n Cheese

My apologies for the lack of updating this week. I came down with the bubonic plague and it has hindered my cooking/eating a bit.

I didn't grow up eating a whole lot of macaroni and cheese. Macaroni in my house was usually smothered in marinara. And on the rare occasion we did have mac 'n cheese, it definitely still contained tomato (soup). It was tasty, though, seriously. In college, I discovered the wonder (or disaster) that is Easy Mac. After OD'ing on yellow dye #5, I avoided it for a few years until this recipe for Baked Mac 'n Cheese piqued my interested.

I added spinach (it was on sale, if you couldn't tell by the proliferation of everything I've made lately) and roasted red peppers. My cheeses of choice were cheddar and left-over feta. Let's not delude ourselves - this certainly isn't slenderizing - but the low fat cottage and sour cream add a goodly amount of gooey wonderment. All of the fat kid fun with slightly fewer calories.

photography by Stephen Cafe

photography by Stephen Cafe

Brooklyn definitely has the 'itis tonight.

Fat Kid Friday: Italian-Greek Empanadas + S'mores Galore

It's my favorite day of the week - Fat Kid Fridays!! It's been a helluva week so carbs, cheese and chocolate were much needed.

Italian-Greek Empanadas

I initially planned on making spanakopita, but my local Key Food was sadly lacking in phyllo. Inspired by my mother's spinach-feta-tomato croissants, I decided to do an Italian-Greek take on empanadas (or is it more of a calzone - what is the difference, technically?). It didn't seem too blasphemous given the large Italian immigration to Argentina...and maybe some Greeks snuck in there, too? Yes? No? Whatever, I like feta.

Ingredients:

refrigerated pie crust

1/4 pound of ricotta cheese

1/2 cup of feta cheese

1 can artichoke hearts

1 box frozen spinach

pinch of dill

pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon of powdered garlic

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix ricotta, feta, defrosted and drained spinach, broken up artichoke hearts, dill, pepper and garlic together.

Unroll pie crust onto lightly floured . Using a cookie cutter (or the top of glass, in my case) cut out circles of crust, re-gathering and re-rolling dough as needed.

Place each circle on a non-stick baking dish. Fill each circle with approximately a teaspoon of filling. Fold over one side of dough and gently seal using fingers. Go around the edges with a fork to further close.

Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly golden.

S'mores, s'mores, s'mores, s'mores....s'mores I do adore!

Micro-s'mores - officially the best (and worst) invention known to mankind.

I recently rediscovered s'mores thanks to my friend Nyjia. As I told her earlier, I don't know whether to say "thank you" or "f**k you."

Assembling peanut butter cup s'more:

Key lime pie :

(roll wet marshmallow in lime jello mix)

My pancreas has strong hate for me right now.

Fat Kid Friday: Eggplant Parm and Roasted Red Pepper Pizza

Every Friday, the former fat kid in me comes out to play. Today she made Eggplant Parmesan & Roasted Red Pepper Pizza.

Yes, that is breaded eggplant right on the pizza. Relatively thin crust except for the edges. A little zesty, a little sweet (mmmm...basil), a lot of diet disaster.

Yeah, I definitely added a layer of chub tonight. It was totally worth it.