A newfound respect for Gnocchi!

Another culinary evening took place last night, and the theme of the night was Italian food!

I had the brilliant idea that we ought to try making out own pasta, and since neither of us have any pasta attachments for making spaghetti or other types, I suggested gnocchi. (Apparently there is a tool for making gnocchi as well,  but it wasn't needed in order to get the gnocchis made...).

For an appetizer, we chose to make baked mozzarella sticks with a very improvised marinara, as we both forgot about the marinara sauce until it was time to eat.... ;-)   Our main course was gnocchi with alfredo sauce and for dessert, we had a tiramisu planned.

BAKED MOZZARELLA STICKS

First up was the mozzarella sticks.  Let me first present you with the recipe we used:

1 package mozzarella string cheese (we used the light ones)
2 tbsp Flour

2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1 cup dried bread crumbs (alternatively you can use cracker crumbs, cornflake crumbs or panko bread crumbs...)
Salt & Pepper
Marinara sauce for dipping (which we forgot..)

1. Place the cheese strings in the freezer at least 1 hour before you plan to make these. These will lessen the oozing of the cheese. Preheat oven to 400ºF.

2. Place the flour, egg whites and crumbs in 3 separate dishes. Season the flour with salt and pepper. Cut the cheese strings in 1/2 widthwise. Dip one cheese stick at a time into the flour to coat, then into the egg whites and then the crumbs. Dip it into the egg again and then the crumbs again, squeezing to help them adhere. It'll be messy, but try to cover the cheese completely. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or sprayed with cooking spray. Repeat with all of the cheese.

3. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden.

Serve immediately with warmed marinara sauce.

Ok, so first of all, I recommend using plain crumbs without any seasoning in them. I don't know if the light mozzarella strings had more salt in them than the regular ones do (it's possible), but our mozzarella sticks, although they were tasty, were a little on the salty side.  Next time I won't be salting the flour, we will be using the entire egg not just the eggwhites for coating and we'll monitor the salt content better.

This was a very messy food to make, as you had to dip it in egg, then crumbs, then eggs again and THEN back in the crumb tray.  By the end of it, my fingers had more coatings of breadcrumbs on them than the mozzarella sticks did.  

We had forgotten about the marinara sauce, so we made an impromptu version.  We took a can of tomatoes and put it in the blender with some Italian seasoning and fresh basil.  It turned out pretty good for being improvised like this.  We also tried dipping the mozzarella sticks in salsa, and surprisingly enough, that did taste very good so it's a nice option if the marinara sauce somehow is forgotten.

Here are the covered mozzarella sticks, before baked.

After they came out of the oven, they looked like this and apart from being slightly salty, they tasted delicious and definitely warrants a second try (and more).  Love that we were able to bake them, thereby making them a little healthier than the fried ones.

GNOCCHI

Next up were the gnocchis & the alfredo sauce, and let me tell you, it was a good thing we had already fed everyone some mozzarella sticks already, because this gnocchi took some time.

Our recipe was one we found on Food Network, posted by Tyler Florence, and here it is:

2 pounds (about 4) baking potatoes, like russets

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg white

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Pierce the potatoes several times so that moisture can escape during baking. Bake the potatoes in a preheated 400 degrees F oven for 1 hour until fork tender.

2. Peel the potatoes while they are still hot and press them through a potato ricer.
(Note: we didn't have a potato rices, so we used a cheese grater instead, which worked really well!)

3. Put the potatoes in a large bowl with salt, baking powder, and egg white. Add the flour a little at a time and mix with your hands until the mixture forms a rough dough. Do not over-work the dough.

4. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Gently knead the dough for 1 or 2 minutes until smooth, adding a little bit more flour, if necessary, to keep it from sticking.


5. Break off a piece of the dough and roll it back and forth into a rope, about the thickness of your index finger. Cut the rope into 1-inch pieces. Gently roll each piece down a wooden gnocchi board while pressing a small dimple with your finger. The gnocchi should be slightly curved and marked with ridges. This will allow the pillows to hold sauce when served.


6. Boil the gnocchi in batches in plenty of salted water. The gnocchi are done about 2 minutes after they float to the surface, remove with a slotted spoon, and serve.
If not cooking immediately, place the gnocchi in a single layer on a baking pan dusted with flour. Cover with ;plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 12 hours.


Note: If the gnocchi start to feather and fall apart in boiling water, you need more flour. If the gnocchi don't float after 2 minutes and are hard, you used too much flour. 

Ok, so cooking and peeling the potatoes, no problems there. I'm Norwegian and one thing Norwegians know how to do, it's peeling potatoes.... it's right up there with skis & beer & aqua vita what tradition is concerned.   We didn't have a potato ricer (not did I know what it was.... but we asked someone who knows Italian food what the consistency of the potato would be like after going through a potato ricer, and we found that it would be about the same as if we used a cheese grater on it.  So we did, and that worked great.   The only advice I have if using a cheese grater, is to make sure that if any larger lumps break off the potato and fall into the mix, make sure to mash those chunks with a fork, because you don't want any lumps of potato in the gnocchi mix.

Little by little we added the flour and kneaded the dough as if it was a bread dough.  As the recipe does NOT offer a solution should the gnocchi dough end up with too much flour in it, we were very careful with the flour.  We figured that we'd essentially be screwed if too much flour ended up in the dough.  So to be sure, we broke off a small piece of the dough and made 5 gnocchis which we cooked, just to see if they would be "feathery" or if they would not rise to the surface.   The gnocchis behaved like good gnocchis should, they rose and were cooked perfectly.  Not bad!!
The only gnocchi that had a problem rising to the surface, was one that had a chunk of potato in it (ergo make sure to mash those lumps if you see them), but that also eventually rose to the top, but tasted slightly more "potatoey" than the rest of them.

Also, we didn't have a gnocchi board, so we just dented the gnocchis a little with our fingers and used a fork to make some stripes on the back.  In fact, after a few gnocchis had been made, we dropped the fork indents as well and we just made a dent in the gnocchi with our fingers and left it at that.  That turned out just fine!
It takes a long time to make gnocchi!  This was a pretty large serving, we were cooking for 6 people.  We were rolling, cutting and denting our hearts out, the entire counter was filled with little gnocchis waiting to be cooked, and we thought we'd never see the end of it.   We both had a newfound respect for gnocchi by the time we were done, and we now understand why not a whole lot of restaurants are serving it... (and when they do, it costs a little more...). Gnocchis are a lot of work!

BUT .... it was worth it and I'll do it again! The end result was fantastic! There was a HUGE difference in the taste between these gnocchis that were made from scratch and the ones we buy in the stores.  They tasted fantastic, so fresh, and we all ate a lot more than we should have.

We served it with an alfredo sauce (I'm not going to post a recipe, you can serve gnocchi with any types of sauces.... meat sauce, marinara...alfredo, pesto... just pick your favorite pasta sauce & go with it). In the alfredo sauce, we had added about 1/2 bag of a pea/carrot mix and some ham, just to have some protein and veggies in there to cut all the starch.  It tasted sooo good and despite the work that went into the gnocchi, I'm all set for doing it again.  Maybe I'll even look into getting a gnocchi board, who knows... it may help the process.

This is what the gnocchi looks like.... pre-gnocchi!

Here are our "test" gnocchis as they float to the top in the pot.

Here's a piece of the "sausage", from which I cut and shaped the gnocchis you see on the plate.
 

Our cooked "pride and joy" gnocchis!  None of them were rubbery, they ALL floated to the surface and none were feathery ... I'm quite impressed actually, it being our virgin gnocchis and all ...

Here's our alfredo sauce w/the added ham & peas/carrots

  

Gnocchi & Alfredo sauce, ready to eat!

Plated..... ladies and gentlemen, pick up your forks....


... and go for it!

After we consumed more than our share of gnocchi & alfredo sauce.... it was time for dessert.   The dessert, oddly enough, was the easiest to make.   So here's a riddle for you:

What do you get when you layer ladyfingers soaked in coffee & a mascarpone cream filling, then drizzle cocoa on top?

Ladyfingers .... soaked in coffee .... + mascarpone cream .... =

Tiramisu!!!

 

Can you say yum?

Yum!

The tiramisu came out great, although it was a LITTLE heavy on the coffee.... I think in the future, we may cut the coffee with some milk to balance the taste a little bit, but don't get me wrong .... it tasted good, and we ALL had seconds!!

Our Italian night went great, I say we did 3 for 3, all entrees came out great and all entrees are something I'd love to do over again.  Definitely a success!

Are you hungry yet?  ;-P



A trip to Pink's in Hollywood!

Ok... let it just be said that you cannot go to Pink's and expect to be "good" when it comes to what you order.  If you just eat the hotdog and a bun, sure, that is not so bad.  But no matter how much you're planning to get ONLY a hotdog on a bun, by the time you reach the counter at Pink's, you will have changed your mind. About everything.  Including the promise you made to yourself regarding not ordering the chili cheese fries.

I'm currently on a diet, I eat between 1200 and 1500 calories a day.  I allow myself one cheat day a week, and this week it was supposed to be Valentine's day.  WAS.  My husband suggested a trip out to Pink's, since we dropped our daughter off to spend a day with her grandmother.  Yesterday I looked up the calorie count in the Hoff dogs that they have a Pink's and I figured that if I got that hotdog with coleslaw on it, that would be ok.  (Just for the record, I love Pink's coleslaw dogs....).  We also made an agreement not to order fries.

Well......we arrive at Pink's and as usual, there's a long line.  Pink's is known for it's long line of people waiting to buy hotdogs.  If there is no line when you get to Pink's, it's almost disappointing.  Standing in line is part of the Pink's experience.   Standing in line is also dangerous.  First of all, you have plenty of time to read all the posters they have, featuring their famous hotdogs, as well as their menu board.  In addition to the visual stimulation of reading about all the ingredients they pile on to the hotdogs, there's also the hotdog smell in the air, you can smell it from blocks away.... and THEN, as if that's not bad enough (especially if you're hungry), once you get closer to the counter, you can SEE the fabulous hotdogs being made, the mountain of fries that is piled up underneath chili and nacho cheese.... Your mouth starts watering and your mind starts wondering, and all of a sudden you find yourself ordering a Mulholland Drive with a side of chili cheese fries.....  Let's just say.... that is probably IT for my daily calorie intake.  (Although.... I only ate half the cheese fries ... ;-))

Let me just give you a dosage of visual stimulation to show you what I mean.... :

Pink's Famous Chili Dogs... line around the block.

Pink's is decorated for Valentine's Day tomorrow :)

Even the mighty chef, Gordon Ramsay, eats at Pink's! If it's good enough for him, well ... then no doubt, it's worth a visit :)

Just a small selection of all the celebrity photos & autographs that are hanging on the walls @ Pink's! It's quite the happening place!  You never know who you're going to run in to!

A troth full of hotdogs, ready to be consumed!

The Pink's crew is amazing, how they keep track of everyone's orders
the way they do, I don't know.... Always friendly and helpful too!

Here is our order: A Mulholland Drive (10" dog with grilled mushrooms, grilled onions and nacho cheese + I added jalapeno peppers), a Planet Hollywood (same as a Mulholland, except with a spicy sausage instead) and the chili nacho cheese fries.

And of course.... Dr. Brown's diet Cream Soda to top it all of! (And yes, I do see the irony in ordering a diet soda after all that, however I do actually enjoy the flavor of diet sodas more as they are not so sweet)

Here's a close up of my Mulholland Drive dog... jalapenos, bacon, mushrooms and onions... It was a challenge to eat, but I somehow managed without too many mushrooms ending up on the floor. I may have snorted some nacho cheese though....

The chili nacho cheese fries are to die for.  Literally.

The after math .....

Even the Good Year blimp was hovering over Pink's... wondering if they have a way to haul those hotdogs up to the blimp?

Well, the damage has been done.  It was worth every single calorie. Pink's is a rare treat, and let me just say, there is no point in thinking about calories when you're there.... just enjoy it!  Run an extra mile on the treadmill tomorrow instead.

Apart from the Mulholland Drive, I have also tried and highly recommend the following dogs:

Coleslaw dog - simple but ohhh so delicious!

Lord of the Rings dog - 10" stretch dog with onion rings and BBQ sauce on top (Warning: BBQ sauce will end up all over your face, there is no graceful way of eating this one.....)
Ozzy dog - I just had a bite of this one once, it's generally too spicy for me, but for the ones of you who enjoy some fire, this is the one for you!
Chili Cheese Dog - Best chili dogs in town. 'Nuff said.

Now that I've got you all thinking about food... (don't lie.... I know you are!)....

Happy early Valentine's Day everybody!

Hunting down the Kogi truck!

So the big rage lately is food trucks.  Now, I didn't grow up in the USA so I'm not familiar with the lunch trucks that I understand go to schools and work places so people can buy cheap food.  Cheap being the operative word.  Often cockroach ridden (also known as the "roach coach") and followed by a sudden visit to the bathroom.... or so I've heard.   I've encountered these lunch trucks on the freeway though.  Mostly broken down, pissing off rush hour drivers by jamming the traffic.   So my connotation to food trucks haven't been good. 

This, however, was before I encountered the Kogi truck!  It was at an event here in town where a local cupcakery (My Delight Cupcakes.... REAAALLY yummy by the way) had invited a couple of food trucks for their cupcake event, one of these trucks being Kogi.  Well, my husband and I hadn't eaten lunch yet that day so we went for the kogi and after one bite, I was hooked and my impression of so-called lunch trucks have been reversed completely.

I'm currently on a diet, but today is our cheat day, so we were sitting around wondering what we should eat on our cheat day.  I remembered the Kogi truck and looked up their website, where they have a schedule of their whereabouts for the week.   The closest truck was going to be in Fullerton, and that's about a 30 minute drive for us, but nevertheless, we packed up the baby and headed out!

My trusty GPS (Magellan rules) navigated us to the shopping mall where the truck was supposed to be, and lo and behold, as soon as we approached the vicinity, we didn't have to do much but follow the smell of Kogi and we found a gigantic line of people waiting to buy food.

We were just in time actually, because only a few more people lined up behind us before the Kogi-crew placed a "the queue ends here" sign in somebody's hand.  It would've sucked to drive all the way there and get no Kogi!   Nevertheless.... there we were. Waiting.  It took us almost an hour to get the food, but believe it or not, waiting in line for Kogi is a part of the whole experience.... Just like going to Pink's Hotdogs in Hollywood.... I mean, you're almost disappointed not to find a line around the block!! :-)

I had only tasted Kogi once before, so I wasn't sure what to order.  We ended up getting and assortment of foods:  Short rib burriton, spicy pork burrito, sweet enchilada chicken quesadilla and a "pacman burger".  I was pretty much just ordering blindly, but I was confident that no matter what was in these dishes, it would be good.

We didn't want to just sit in our car and eat, so we found a park nearby where we unpacked our goodies and enjoyed :-)  It turned out to be a very nice trip indeed, and my tummy is still nice and happy, my tongue is still watering.... This Kogi BBQ is amazing!

Kogi truck ... people can't wait to get their hands on some Kogi BBQ!

Here's the Pacman burger, oh man is it ever good!  Basically cabbage, kimchi, bbq short rib & some
secret sauces of course... all stacked on a toasted burger bun.  To die for!

Pacman burger and the Sweet Chili Chicken Quesadilla

Here's the insides of my Pacman burger.  Just a big juicy mess of pure deliciousness!

Sweet chili chicken quesadilla! It was also tasty, not my favorite thought,
mostly due to the vinegary chili sauce that covers the quesadilla
(That would be that hotsauce with the rooster on it... dont remember the name lol).

Short rib burrito, my favorite! Sweet BBQ beef with cabbage, kimchi and egg, all wrapped up with some
secret sauces in a tasty tortilla. 



People from out of state or out of country have asked me what Kogi is.... and I truly don't think explaining it is quite enough for people to get the picture.  It's a Korean/Mexican fusion cuisine of sorts, but just saying it like that isn't enough to explain how tasty it is.  Kogi simply must be tasted, that's the only way to know what it is.

IF you can find the truck in time ....... that is the challenge of Kogi! :)

The "whatever is left in the fridge" casserole

So... I had some ground turkey that was nearing that point of "cook it or lose it".... I was looking around for some recipes for ground turkey, found a lot of good ones but they all either included ingredients I currently don't have in the house (and I'm too lazy to go to the store for only a couple of items) OR the calorie count was too high.  Ground turkey (or ground beef) can be used for a lot of good food creations, but I have a particular concoction and if I have other vegetables in the fridge that are nearing their final due date.

There's really no recipe for this one. I just kind of whip it together from anything I have in the fridge and use it either for a pizza topping, a pasta sauce.... or tonight, I added some BBQ sauce to the basic mix and we used it for sloppy joes, which was more calorie appropriate than pairing it with pasta (at least for tonight...).

This is my base:

1 lbs ground turkey (or beef)
1 medium sized onion
3-4 tablespoons tomato paste
Various vegetables, per choice of the cook!

Chop up the onion as well as any vegetables you may decide to toss in.  Spray a pan with oil (or if you prefer to use actual oil, go ahead and heat it up :-)), toss the onion in.  When the onion is a golden brown, throw in whatever other vegetables you have decided to use and let sizzle together for awhile, until veggies are soft.  Add the ground turkey/beef and mix it in with the veggies.  Keep chopping and stirring the meat until everything is browned.   Once the meat is cooked all the way through, add 3-4 tablespoons of tomato paste along with about 1/2 cup of water.  Let simmer together for a few minutes, just so the tomato paste flavoring soaks into the meat.

This is where you can get creative and pull out whichever spices will go good with whatever purpose you intend to use the meatsauce for.  I usually add some salt and pepper, sometimes some oregano... cinnamon (I like adding cinnamon to almost everything I cook....).  Tonight I wanted to use this for sloppy joes, so I added a couple of table spoons of BBQ sauce.  I also like pouring some of those mixed spices in there (like the pork seasonings or poultry seasonings).  I just say "season to taste".... Make sure to taste along the way and for the love of god, edit yourself.  Don't pour ALL these suggested spices in at once.... lol.
The only vegetable I had in there tonight was mushroom, so I added some extra spices to make up for the lack of flavorful veggies.

Anyway.... it's hard to place a specific recipe on the table for this sauce as it's just something I normally toss together, but you get the general idea....   :-)

Here is my finished sauce on a whole wheat bun.  About 300 calories.

This is comfort food! I love whipping this one together.  If you're feeling brave, this can also be used as base for various pasta bakes.  Just whip it together with some pasta noodles and drizzle some cheese on top, slide it in the oven and bake on 350 for a for a few minutes.   Sometimes I will make a cheese sauce that I blend into the meat before baking.... I promise that when I make a pasta cheese bake next time, I'll be sure to post the cheese sauce recipe along with this random recipe.  (Although if I post a pasta bake recipe, I'll make sure to take better notes so I can give you a detailed recipe instead of this.....lol)

Anyway....  I'm nice & satisfied tonight, and the best part is I've got leftovers for another night ;-)