Entries by Chad Thunberg

I cook flank steak about once a month. The meat is can be tough if not prepared properly. Normally I butterfly, tenderize, and marinate the steak in an acidic marinade to break down the collagen in the meat. If I don't butterfly it, I beat the heck out of it with a mallet. Flank steak should never be cooked past medium.

I started making crepes a few years ago for my wife and it has now become a tradition to make them on special occasions for breakfast. I have never had an issue making crepes. I use a Sitram non-stick chef's fry pan and flip them like I would a pancake. The recipe I use is Julia Child's but with the addition of vanilla extract. Consider serving these with a Mimosa.

I love Piroshkies. Self contained and portable food has a soft place in my heart. Tonight I attempted to make them for the first time. For those not familiar, Piroshkies are Russian pastries stuffed with a myriad of vegetables and meat. I found a recipe at http://www.indobase.com/recipes/details/piroshki.php that I adapted. If anyone has an authentic recipe for these or some pointers, drop me a line.

Tonight I made a seafood pasta with fettuccine, a mix of grilled vegetables, and sourdough rolls.

I made a Miso Chicken Stir-Fry tonight for dinner and it turned out excellent. I tend to use whatever I have in my fridge for stir-fry but still try to adhere to some specific theme. I made only a single serving tonight so feel free to double or quadruple the recipe to feed more people. Also, don't be afraid to change around vegetables.

I have been working on a few bread recipes and have been pretty happy with an augmented Multi-Grain recipe from King Arthur Flour's website. The bread is pretty hearty and includes a sunflowers, milled flax seed, cornmeal, sesame seeds, and whole oats. The recipe is low salt and contains no butter. A slice of this with honey is unstoppable.

I am attempting to create a natural sourdough starter, or sourdough without any commercial yeast. Sourdough has a pretty interesting history including heavy association with gold miners who would take it with them wherever they went. NPR has some great information history about sourdough and a few recipes at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6061648.

The Window Pane Test is an easy test to evaluate the readiness of dough for bread while kneading.

1. After the dough appears to be elastic, 10 minutes using an electric mixer or 15 minutes by hand, remove a small piece of the dough.
2. Roll the dough between your fingers to repair the tear.
3. Slowly stretch the dough apart, alternating sides.
4. The goal is to stretch the dough until you can see light through it without it tearing or ripping.
5. Once you can stretch the dough sufficiently, you can stop kneading.

I will try and add some picture of this next time I make bread

I have been looking towards a number of Asian dishes for healthy recipes and tonight decided to try my hand at a simplified and healthier version of Pho. This version can be prepared in about 45 minutes and is about 588 calories for a 2 cup serving with 40g of rice noodles.

I made a decision last week to try and lose some weight and in support of the decision, I have been trying to cook healthier and track my caloric intake. I will be adding a subcatagory for low calorie and healthy recipes with my estimates of nutritional value. This blog, however, will not turn into a dieting or diet tracking blog and will continue to be food focused. For those interested in tracking your caloric intake, I am using The Daily Plate feature over at http://www.livestrong.com which has an extensive database of food.