Italian Wedding Soup

We’re getting married in ~6 weeks! Neither of us are Italian. Do Italians really serve this at weddings? Whatever, the soup is tasty and I wanted meatballs in this week’s soup. I found Ina Garten’s Italian Wedding Soup recipe and made a few adjustments based on what I had, could find at the store, and felt like eating.

On Sundays, I generally make a pot of soup that’s good for ~2 nights of weeknight dinner, 2 portions for the freezer and maybe a lunch or two. The other nights include chopped salad with a grilled protein, family dinners or meals out. This one is definitely going into our weekly soup rotation.

Even better, I’ve found my new meatball recipe. They’re quick and easy (they’re baked in the oven), crispy yet tender inside without being too mushy or too firm. You don’t even have to get your hands dirty–I used a 1 inch cookie scoop. I tested half where I rolled them into round balls and left the other half kind of rough. The unrolled balls had more nooks and crannies to crisp up in the oven for a better texture. Of course, when I threw them into the soup it didn’t make much of a difference at all, so why bother getting your hands dirty?

The surprising thing about this soup for me was the use of fresh dill. As a kid, I remember being mortified that my mom would pull over on the side of the road to pick fresh dill growing out of the concrete. “It’s free!” she would excitedly exclaim while I shrunk down in my seat hoping none of my classmates would pass by. I also remember not liking the taste and begging my mom not to use dill in her soups and fishballs. She told me it wouldn’t taste as good without the dill but always made me a special portion without dill. I might normally skip the dill out of habit but the reviews mentioned that the soup was dull without it. They were right and either I’ve grown up or my taste buds have.

Lawang: Afghan braised chicken in turmeric & yogurt sauce

I really like Middle Eastern food though my experience is quite limited. Sure, hummus, falafel, chicken rice cart, Ali Baba (South SF) and Kabul Afghan Cuisine (San Carlos & Burlingame) are familiar to me but I imagine this is similar to Americans who are familiar with “Chinese” food. You know, chow mien and General Tso’s chicken. I have the Jerusalem cookbook, but I want to learn more, eat more and cook more. At some point, I want to make a field trip to Little Kabul in Fremont, too. Turkey has also been high on the destination list for a while, but the timing hasn’t worked out quite yet.

In search of a recipe for my favorite Afghan eggplant and lamb dish, I found a recipe for lawang, an Afghan dish of braised chicken in a turmeric and yogurt sauce. Joel almost always orders the lawang when we go to Kabul Afghan Cuisine and since we had Greek yogurt (it is now a permanent fixture in our fridge and a permanent substitute for sour cream unless we have guests) and extra chicken legs I didn’t use for the chicken adobo I figured this would be the perfect time to try the recipe. It is so easy and delicious–just takes a bit of patience as the onions and chicken slowly simmer into a velvety sauce. Don’t stir the yogurt in until you are ready to eat it–otherwise the yogurt will curdle. It’ll still taste good but it’ll look a little gross (I learned this when reheating later).

Catfish Adobo

Lately, we’ve been having weekly dinners that are hosted on a rotating basis by my cousins and SF family. Last week was our turn to host. I had a few limitations: 1) I had to do most of the cooking ahead of time as I would be coming straight from work. Last minute prep could take no longer than 30 minutes. 2) One person is a celiac so gluten-free (GF) option is a must 3) Another cousin prefers not to eat red meat so a seafood or vegetarian option is not required but nice to have.

Based on the above criteria, I settled on chicken adobo. Because I’m a newbie to GF cooking, I thought adobo would be a great option. I could cook it all the night before and better yet, it would taste even better reheated the next day after the flavors had a day to deepen. All I had to do on the day of was set the timer for rice. Genius!

Zony’s Croquettas (Tuna Croquettes)

Zon worked for my best friends’ family for over 30 years as their nanny/cook/auntie. I’ve known her since I was 13 and have eaten too many of her meals to count. Almost every photo I have of Zon is of her cooking. If she’s not cooking, she always has a huge smile and food is in the frame.  The last time I saw her was in 2008 the day I left for Chicago; she’s since retired and moved back to her native Philippines. Boohoo!

I first learned about Zon when my friend brought croquettas to school. Most of us had bagels, pb&j or mac n cheese…these fried balls stuffed with tuna and potato were something new but familiar…and delicious! Love at first bite.

Latkes

Wow. I started this post in December…but travels to Cambodia and Thailand followed immediately by the start of a new job results in…this.

A friend’s parents host a party every year dubbed “Vodkas and Latkes.” As we are not close enough for an invite, we thought we’d make some latkes and chug some vodkas on our own. Except we don’t keep vodka around so it turned into latkes and whiskey, which just isn’t as fun to say.

Anyway, what’s not to like about potato pancakes? (and whiskey!) I was initially a bit worried about the amount of onions in the recipe, but they cook down to add sweetness to the pancake. Maybe a little taboo, but mine were fried in bacon fat (I didn’t have the traditional schmaltz) and topped with sour cream and herring roe from Ikea. I don’t recommend the roe from Ikea–I’d rather eat the Japanese version–but it made for a pretty picture. 

Apple Pie Bars

This recipe was a pain in the ass and I probably won’t be making it again anytime soon. Some of it was my fault: I halved the recipe (the original makes 4 dozen bars and would require me to peel 12 apples) and halfway through making the crust, I forgot and put in twice the amount of flour required. I baked it in an 8×8 but it probably would have worked out better in a 9×11–I only used 5 apples instead of 6 and everything just barely fit in the 8×8. And also because of the smaller pan, the crumble topping ended up being too thick for my liking and reminded me more of a granola bar.

I don’t own an apple peeler/corer so I did it all by hand which took a lot longer than I would have preferred. When I make blueberry and peach crumble bars, I generally use fruits that don’t require as much peeling. The crust looked nothing like I’ve ever made before though it ended up working out okay. In the future, I’ll probably just make the crumble bars and if I want to adapt to apple, that’s fairly easy.

That said, I brought this to my family’s Easter celebration and it was all gone before lunch even started! I’m sure this is also an okay recipe to make pie bars out of other fruits as well…I’ll let ya know what happens when peach season comes around!

Spiced Chickpeas & Fresh Vegetable Salad

I love the mixture of cold crunchy vegetables and warm toasty chickpeas. I like this salad because it tastes fresh and is very flexible. For example, I don’t like raw onions, so I excluded them.