Kitchen Cats

For at least a year and a half, I have toyed with the idea of having a cooking blog as a place to share the best new recipes that I try. But I held off till now, for a few reasons: 1) There are literally thousands and thousands of personal food and cooking blogs out there. And while I may be fascinated by what I make for dinner on a random weeknight, it is not novel and exciting enough to matter to anyone else. 2) Most blogs seem to require a lot of effort. Not just effort to write a couple paragraphs per day, but the effort of keeping up the activity that you’re blogging about. While I love cooking, I don’t have the time (or sometimes desire) to be trying new, blog-worthy recipes on a regular enough basis.

What changed my mind was the dinner that I made tonight, after a great Sunday of easy hiking in Panola State park with my fiancé. As I was making 2 old recipes and 1 new one, I again came back to the thought that I need to keep a cooking diary, for no other reason than to help me remember what was good in the past, and notes on how to make it better in the future. Having previously been a religious journal-keeper in the past, I feel like a blog is nothing more than a diary that people decide to publish online for anyone to read. For me, it will be more a place to keep myself organized than a site that will attract dozens of readers for its fabulous cooking ideas. So I will start off tonight with our stir-fry broccoli, stir-fry tofu, and berry-crumble coffee cake, and go from there, whenever I next feel inspired.

Next thing I must explain is the name of the blog. When my fiancé and I combined households 2 months ago, we became a house of 3 cats: his two (Forrest and Clonie) and my one (Ava). While Ava is still sequestered upstairs, Forrest and Clonie are constantly underfoot in the kitchen, begging for food, attention, or both. This weekend our kitchen also gained 7 maneki neko (lucky cats). Dan has this lucky cat banner from Japan, and it took me 2 months to figure out how to hang it (the answer was a 59-cent wooden dowel). Now that the lucky cats have residence above the sink, it is time for a kitchen cat blog.

Tonight I made:

• Buttermilk-Berry Crumble Coffee Cake (Williams-Sonoma baking book)
• NEW recipe

• Stir-fried Broccoli with Oyster Sauce (Cook’s Illustrated, March/April 2010)
• made this 2-3 times previously

• Soy-glazed Tofu (Cooking Light, August 2009)
• made once before (recently)

Buttermilk Berry-Crumble Coffee Cake

Comments: moist cake with good texture; not too sweet; must make again

Topping

¼ cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

grating of nutmeg

2 Tbsp cold butter, cut in pieces

¼ cup blanched, chopped almonds

¼ cup rolled oats

1 cup frozen berries

Cake

1.5 cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup (4 Tbsp) cold butter, cut in pieces

½ cup granulated sugar

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 cup buttermilk

½ tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 8” square pan.

Topping: combine brown sugar, flour, nutmeg, cold butter in small food processor and blend until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Stir in the almonds and oats.

Cake: Mix 1.5 cups flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, baking soda in a food processor until mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Add egg, buttermilk, vanilla, and stir until just blended.  Pour the batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Scatter the berries over the surface then sprinkle the crumble mixture evenly over berries.  Bake approx 50 minutes.

Stir-Fried broccoli

Comments: the original recipe is with soy sauce and chili-garlic sauce; I have always made the variation with oyster sauce, but I usually forget and add the soy sauce and chili-garlic sauce that I am supposed to omit for this version.  The ingredients I combine tonight resulted in a lighter sauce than we were used to.  Still tasty.  I made a double batch, since we had 4 huge heads of broccoli.

For double batch:

~ 3 pounds broccoli

sprinkle of sugar

Combine:

½ cup chicken broth (maybe should have been 6 Tbsp)

2 Tbsp mirin

6 Tbsp oyster sauce

2 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp cornstarch

4 tsp Asian Chili-Garlic Sauce

Combine:

2 garlic cloves, minced

dash red pepper flakes

1 tsp canola oil

Heat 1 Tbsp oil in large skillet.  Add broccoli and sprinkle with sugar (for carmelization).  Stir-fry for 8-10 minutes.  Add oil-garlic mixture to center of pan and combine with broccoli, stirring 15-20 seconds.  Add chicken broth mixture and stir 30-60 seconds.

Soy-Glazed Tofu

Notes: the CL recipe also adds orange juice and orange zest.  Since we had neither, I just omitted them, and the result was even better than the first time we made this dish.  To drain the tofu, I cut it into strips, place it between 2 folded dish towels, and weighted it down with a 2”-thick wooden cutting board for over 15 minutes.  Squeezing out the excess water gave it perfect stir-fry consistency (crispy outside, soft inside, didn’t crumble)

1 12-oz package of tofu (I used soft), drained and cut into cubes

3 Tbsp rice vinegar

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp sesame oil

Combine the vinegar, soy sauce, sugar in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 6 minutes, until thick and syrupy.

Heat sesame oil in large sauce pan.  Add tofu and sauté until golden brown on all sides.  Pour vinegar mixture over tofu to coat.

Clonie Kitchen Cat, very interested in the dinner table: