Entries by Chad Thunberg

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.

Isaac and I have been working on a few pizza recipes and thought we would subject our friends to it. Isaac took on the Chicago-style stuffed pizza and a more traditional and minimalist Pizza Margherita. I made two thin crust versions, a meat, pepper, and onion combination with a tomato base and the other was a chicken and spinach with an olive oil base.

I think all the pizzas turned out really well and the feedback was mostly positive.

So despite knowing better, I was rushing and misusing my knife over the weekend while chopping ingredients for pizza which resulted in cutting 1/3 way through my index finger. I managed to contain things with some tape and a napkin so I could finish cooking. Once things stopped bleeding and the pizza was off the big green egg, we put a few Steri-Strips on it to keep things closed. Using the opportunity as a teaching tool, I thought I would sit down and document how to properly hold and control a knife. Perhaps I will follow these instructions in the future and save myself from another incident.

I have been wanting to make some Jambalaya since Isaac, Sean, and I made a batch of andouille sausage and figured tonight was the night. The following is a quick version of Jambalaya but there are a lot of versions out on the internet. My goal was to use what I had in the house though I started the dinner thinking I had a bell pepper left over from pizza night but I apparently misremembered.

I purchased an Aerobie AeroPress about a year ago and love it. For $26, you can’t get a better and cup of coffee. The AeroPress takes some fundamental ideas of how an espresso machine and French press work and combines them into a small and easy to use package. The result is a smooth cup of coffee without the lingering grounds you commonly find in a cup made by a French press. The AeroPress is not a replacement for a cup of espresso nor does it scale, as it becomes labor intensive when trying to make multiple cups of coffee simultaneously.

In addition to the AeroPress, I bought a Capresso Infinity burr grinder and retired my old bean chopper. The burr grinder provides a more consistent grind and produces a better overall cup of coffee. The Capresso is a good upgrade from the chopper but is still considered entry level. I have a few minor complaints with the grounds getting stuck in the chopping chamber and collector but some tapping and regular cleaning helps.

The folks over at CoffeeGeek.com have done a great job grilling the inventor of the AeroPress and have a number of good reviews of the Capresso Infinity.

• Cibus Vitae Store - http://www.cibusvitae.com/pages/store.html
  
• AeroPress Thread - http://coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/195166
  
• Capresso Infinity Review - http://coffeegeek.com/reviews/grinders/capressoinfinity