The Quickest Meal Ever*

*By ever we mean in the context of this cooking blog and how long it usually takes us to cook our meals - which is forever.

After a minor hiatus we are back in the kitchen!

For tonight's adventure we made feta mashed potatoes, orange salmon with kale, and an AMAZING salad the Rebecca put together off the top of her head.

Feta mashed potatoes

Ingredients:
(We used) 5 red potatoes
2 tbs butter
Garlic powder
Most of an 8oz block of feta
Salt n pepper

Directions:
Peel them potatoes! Chop into small cubes, as it cooks much faster this way. When potatoes are cooked, add butter, a bit of salt, a bit of pepper (to taste), a tablespoon or so of garlic powder (but we like our garlic) and crumbled feta (you can get the crumbles but we recommend a block and crumbling it yourself). Mash the whole thing until you have mashed potatoes :)

To garnish, add chopped scallions and hot sauce. Mmmm....

Orange salmon and kale (and baby bok choy)

Ingredients:
2 oranges
1lb salmon fillets, skinless
10oz fresh kale, roughly chopped with the stems removed and only the green stuff used
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
4 green onions, chopped, for garnish
(We also added...) 2 largish baby bok choy, chopped

Directions:
Zest both oranges. Set aside orange zest. Cut peel from one orange, and chop up into squares. Set aside. Juice the other orange and add juice to a large saute pan. If your salmon came with skin on it like ours did, remove skin (and fry it with some soy sauce to eat right away). In your pan, arrange salmon and sprinkle with half the orange zest, salt and pepper.  Cover and let it cook until fish is fully cooked through (no longer a dark pink - maybe 5 minutes). Remove fish to your plate(s). Add kale, oranges, chopped baby bok choy, remaining zest, salt and pepper to pan and cook for just a few minutes until greens were cooked, but not completely wilted. Serve salmon on a bed of greens, with your green onion for garnish (this is clearly a theme here).

Super-awesome salad by Rebecca

Ingredients:
1 avocado
1 big gala apple
Some match-stick carrots
2 green onions
Big chunk of ginger, peeled and minced

Salad dressing:
2 tbs olive oil
Most of the minced ginger (but you can put some more in your salad if you like) soaked in the olive oil for at least 10 minutes
Juice of half a lemon (use a fresh lemon!)
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Cut everything up and mix together with the salad dressing, which is just all of the ingredients mixed together as well! For the apples, cut into thin slices (like guitar picks). Same with the avocado - make sure it's a very ripe one because it serves more as an emulsifier than as a salad ingredient. Very tasty.

The end!

Kimchi is the Word

On this evening's adventure, frankly, we went all over the place. It was partially inspired by a newly-arrived (Amazon-bought) cookbook (Steamy Kitchen’s Healthy Asian Favorites by Jaden Hair) and partly by the fact that it's a 3-day weekend so we threw all caution to the wind and added monkey bread from scratch to our line-up.

Aside from the monkey bread, the tale of which we shall tell in due time, we made kimchi(!), curry, and a napa cabbage salad.

First, for the quick kimchi.

Ingredients:

1 head napa cabbage

4 tbsp salt

2 green onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic (we used 4)

1 tsp grated fresh ginger (we used a tablespoon instead)

2 tbsp hot chili paste

½ cup rice vinegar

2 tsp sugar

We actually halved this recipe and used the other half the napa cabbage for our salad. We doubled the garlic, however, to 4 cloves, and used a tablespoon of ginger instead of the teaspoon. Finally, since we didn't have chili paste, we used sriracha - and it worked just as well.

Directions:

Remove and discard outer leaves and the tough inner core of the napa cabbage. Rinse all the leaves. Shred it using a sharp kitchen knife - don't use a grater.

In a large bowl, toss cabbage with salt and let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. After that, rinse cabbage (from the salt) and squeeze all the water out.

Toss the cabbage with all remaining ingredients and let it sit for at least an hour in the fridge (you're supposed to be able to eat it immediately, hence the quick kimchi, but we really recommend letting the flavors soak in). 

On to the curry.

Ingredients: 

1 tsp cooking oil

2 tbsp Thai red curry paste

1 can of coconut milk

½ red bell pepper

½ yellow bell pepper

1 small tomato

8 ounces firm tofu, cut into 1in cubes

8 fresh basil leaves

Cooked rice, to serve

We added all sorts of things to this recipe and doubled the whole thing. We added some mushrooms, used a green pepper instead of a yellow, added an onion (who makes curry without an onion??), added some potato, and threw out the tomato. 

Directions:

Although the cookbook didn't tell us to do this, we definitely drained our tofu first. To drain tofu, cut longways and wrap in paper towels. Put under a heavy press and let it sit for at least a half hour.

Heat the pan (we recommend a wok) over medium heat. Add the oil and then the red curry paste, frying it for about 30 seconds. Pour in a few tablespoons of coconut milk and mix. Add the garlic and ginger, and let cook for a bit. Add the rest of the coconut milk, the tofu, and all the vegetables. 

Simmer until vegetables are cooked, then add fresh basil before serving.

If you're using potato in your curry, we recommend peeling, cubing, and then boiling it first. Then add it to your curry at the very end - that ensures you have thoroughly cooked potato in your curry.

On another note, we didn't love this recipe. Aside from the heat of the curry paste there was very little flavor and it needed salt, at a minimum. We would recommend looking elsewhere for a spectacular curry.

Napa cabbage salad

Ingredients (these are what we actually used, not what the original recipe called for, half of which we didn't have)

1/2 head of napa cabbage, shredded

1/4 of a cup of white onion, julienned 

2 tbsp (or more) of sesame seeds

1 cup almonds (it calls for slivered but we just chopped up some we had whole)

Roughly crushed pita chips (amount to taste - this is your crunch)

Dressing:

1/8 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup white sugar (add more if you like sweeter dressing)

1 tbsp soy sauce

Directions:

In a pan, fry the almonds and sesame seeds in some butter (you're supposed to toast them, but to hell with toasting, butter is better). Combine dressing ingredients in a saucepan and let them boil for one minute. Set aside and cool until it's no longer too hot to touch (you should wait until it's cooler, but we didn't and it tasted real good).

Throw together all ingredients and dressing, and sprinkle pita chips on top in individual bowls (whatever you do, don't let the pita chips get soggy!!!!)

Deeeeeeeeee-licious.

(Original recipe found here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/napa-cabbage-salad/)

We now come to the epic battle (and conclusion) of our evening's program. 

We did not, in fact, end it with monkey bread in hand. We ended it with strips of fried dough probably more delicious (but still not monkey bread) instead.

Basically - our dough didn't rise (at ALL) even after two poundings so we hit the interwebs which told us to roll it out thing and fry the hell out of it on the stovetop. We then sprinkled it with a mixture of brown sugar, walnuts and cinnamon - patiently waiting on becoming monkey bread - and ate it up. Honestly - we don't think we can ever recreate this adventure again, so we're going to keep the recipe a mystery and taunt you with pictures.