Pecan encrusted salmon and ham & potato soup

Baked chicken parmesan with spaghetti and clam chowder

Chocoate covered strawberry cake truffles

Japanese chicken dish with green bean casserole

Stuffed peppers and butternut squash soup

With the chilly fall days settling in on us (we got our first flakes of snow just yesterday!), there is nothing better than a hot homecooked meal to look forward to after a weekend of studying. We were all stressing over a quiz that we had to study for, and rumor was it that this quiz was so badly written that it was impossible to do well on it. So it was definitely time for comfort food!

Having had several pasta dishes in the past few weeks, I decided that it would be a nice change of pace to do something different. Seeing bell peppers on sale the week before had reminded me of making stuffed peppers, which is a warm and satisfying favorite of mine. It was also the perfect pairing to a hot creamy bowl of butternut squash soup, and what better time than now, when butternut squash is in season?

I generally followed a stuffed pepper recipe that I have made before and substituted ground pork for ground beef, since Edwin doesn't eat beef. Some improvisation had to go into the sauce topping of the peppers because I didn't have all the ingredients, but it still turned out very tasty! The butternut squash soup recipe was even easier to follow - my friend rattled off the ingredients to me earlier in the day in the car, and I did a quick bit of research to see how the soup is generally cooked. Aside from cutting the vegetables, everything else came together with minimal effort, now that's my kind of soup :)



Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients: (serves 4)
4 green bell peppers
3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 lb. ground pork
1.5 cups (raw measure) short grain white rice
1 can (12 oz.) diced tomatoes (garlic & herb flavor)
garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste

For the topping:
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp Korean bbq sauce
1 tbsp Hoisin sauce


Directions:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil over high heat. (If you're going to cook your rice fresh, then do it now so it'll be ready to go when you need it.) Wash the peppers and cut off the tops about 1/2 inch from the stem, so that you can reach into the pepper and pull out the seeds and spines. I diced up the pepper tops minus the stem, and added it to the filling for the peppers so that it wouldn't go to waste.

2. Place the peppers in the pot to boil, filling the insides with water to prevent them from floating. Boil for about 3 minutes, until slightly softened. Drain and set aside to cool.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a skillet, heat 3 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Add in chopped onions and diced pepper tops, stirring often for about 3 minutes. Add the ground pork and cook an additional 3 minutes until the meat is just browned and the vegetables are soft and translucent. Season generously with garlic powder, salt and pepper and mix well. Stir in cooked rice and canned tomatoes.

4. Rub olive oil along the insides of the peppers. Place them in a baking dish and keep them upright using a ring of scrunched up foil around the base if necessary. Fill each pepper with pork and rice mixture.

5. Combine the ingredients for the topping and stir until blended. Spoon generously over the tops of the stuffed peppers - it should be somewhat runny but will mostly stay on top of the stuffing.

6. Finally, pour 1/2 cup of water into the baking dish to keep the bottoms of the peppers from drying out during the baking. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Remove peppers, allow to cool for 5 minutes, and then serve.



Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients: (serves 4-6)
1 medium butternut squash (approx 1.5 lb), cut into 1 inch cubes
1 granny smith apple, cubed
2 carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks
1/3 large onion, chopped
1 can chicken broth
1 tbsp olive oil
skim milk as needed
garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste


Directions:

1. Over medium-high heat, saute onions in olive oil until beginning to turn translucent. Add in squash, carrots, and apple, and saute an additional 3 minutes.

2. Pour in chicken stock, bring to a boil and continue to boil for 20 minutes on high heat with the pot lid ajar, checking occasionally to stir add water when the liquid begins to dry up.

3. When vegetables are soft, turn off heat and pour into a blender. Add 1 cup of milk and blend until smooth. Adjust the amount of milk to reach the desired soup consistency.

4. Return soup to pot and heat before serving. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper as desired.

Angel hair pasta with chicken cream of mushroom sauce

A delicious family-style Chinese meal with friends

Chinese herbal chicken soup with Shittake mushrooms

Chicken breast stir fried with broccoli and bok choy

Yushang eggplant with ground pork

Our Olin cooking club plus two guests!

Gourmet cupcakes from Cupcakery

Tuna Helper and the simplest cake ever

Tuna helper is a lifesaver when all I want to do is make a one-pot dinner and not have to deal with any raw meat. It's cheap and easy, and makes a lot if you make a few adjustments. They box always says there's 5 servings if you make it according to directions, which is completely a lie. They're five 1-cup servings. Who eats just one cup of tuna helper for dinner? Jeez.

To get more mileage out of my tuna helper, I employ a few tactics:
- double the amount of tuna (2 cans instead of 1)
- double the amount of pasta (I buy a box of rotini/fusilli pasta so that the shape is similar)
- add vegetables (usually broccoli, carrots, and onions)
- increase liquids accordingly, but not the butter

When I make the tuna helper, I usually start stir frying the onions, carrots, and broccoli first in a skillet. Then I set them aside when they're nearly cooked. I proceed to boil the milk, water, seasoning packet and butter as called for in the Tuna helper directions, and throw in the pasta to cook. (Note: through experience, I've discovered that Tuna helper pasta is some sort of fast-cook pasta, so if you've bought regular pasta to add bulk, start boiling that first and then add the packaged pasta later to get the same consistency.) Finally, when the pasta is nearly al dente, I stir all the vegetables back in, and add milk/water to get a nice sauce, which I reduce slightly for thickness. Since the seasoning packet flavors have been diluted in the larger pot of stuff, I generally add some salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese for extra flavor. In this way, you can probably have enough to serve 5 people for dinner without any extra sides. Plus, you have protein, starch, vegetables, and dairy all in one pot, now that's balanced!


Now, for the simplest cake ever...

I was at the supermarket and saw that cake mixes were on sale for $1 a box. I figured it would be nice to have a little something extra to end the meal, since the main course was a one-pot thing which could get boring. Normally you'd have to deal with oil and eggs for a boxed cake mix, but I wasn't planning to buy a whole box of eggs just to make a cake. This simple trick I learned from the blogosphere long ago... just take a can of soda (any flavor, diet or non-diet) and add it to the dry cake mix powder. Stir until smooth, and bake according to directions! Voila, the simplest cake ever! And the result is moist and yummy. I would recommend pairing Sprite with lighter cakes like white, yellow, confetti, strawberry, etc. Pair Coke with darker cakes like chocolate, devil's food, german chocolate. Mix and match to get interesting flavors! Here I only had a can of Diet Coke for my confetti cake, so it came out a little more caramel-colored than normal, but the taste was fine. The big bonus about this method too is that for those of you watching calories, using a can of diet soda cuts down on nearly half the calories of baked boxed cake mix! Now that's news that's fit to eat :)

Chinese pancake wraps with corn and kielbasa chowder

Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup

It was the night before our first midterm this semester, which was biochemistry. Out of the 4 of us, only Edwin, who is an MD/PhD student, isn't in this class and therefore wasn't cramming all weekend like the rest of us. He graciously volunteered to make us dinner that night, and so we had some satisfying and simple grilled cheese sandwiches with Campbell's tomato soup. Sure, it put me in a food coma afterwards, but it was still great :P Thanks Edwin!

Bacon and spinach penne with sweet potato casserole

Japanese chicken curry

One of my favorite Japanese foods, aside from sushi, is Japanese curry over steaming hot white rice. Japanese curry is very different from Indian curry, in that it is not particularly spicy and has a more rounded savory flavor with hints of sweetness. Whereas Indian curry complements vegetables, Japanese curry goes best with meat. In fact, one way that Japanese restaurants often serve this curry is poured over a battered and fried cutlet of meat (pork, chicken, or beef). It is so delicious...

Anyway, it's really easy to make your own Japanese curry at home, because most supermarkets sell these curry roux blocks in their Asian aisle. Popular brands tend to be S&B Curry or Vermont Curry. All you have to do is cook the meat and vegetables for your curry, and then dissolve these curry blocks into boiling water to get a thick and delicious curry that will make the rice fly off your plates. It also makes for lots of leftovers, which is great if you don't have time to cook all the time.

The recipe itself is very flexible, so I'll just describe it generally. First you decide what vegetables and meat goes into the curry. I generally like to do it with chicken thigh meat, as it is very juicy, but chicken breast, pork, and beef all go well with it. In terms of vegetables, I suggest carrots and onions, and optionally potatoes if you would like more bulk in your curry. The box of curry blocks will tell you how much meat and vegetables to use, although you are free to adjust. Chop up all the ingredients into cubes.

Sautee the onions and carrots in a skillet while you boil the potatoes until they are soft. Drain the potatoes, then add the onions and carrots, along with a couple cups of water to the pot with the potatoes, bringing the liquid to a boil. Meanwhile, stir fry the meat in a skillet until 3/4 cooked through. Transfer meat to the pot of vegetables.

When the water comes to a boil and all the vegetables are soft to the bite, break the curry block into cubes and stir into the liquid to dissolve. Add more water as needed to achieve the desired curry consistency, but remember that more liquid means a more dilute curry flavor. This can be ameliorated with more curry blocks, but if you're using up a whole package and have no extras to spare, keep that in mind. When the curry starts to thicken, turn off the heat and ladle on top of rice to serve.

Thai shrimp fried rice and roasted vegetables with cheese

Jason & Hank, please edit and add to your posts as you like :)

Dani's chicken parmesan with penne

For our inaugural Olin cooking club dinner, Edwin had already decided way in advance that he wanted to try and make a chicken parm recipe that he tried at our classmate Dani's house. It was a pan-fried chicken parm that did not use cheese, paired with penne and a tomato basil sauce, yum. We made a trip to our local Schnuck's supermarket for the necessary ingredients, and then it was time to go to town on our dinner!

I have to admit, for someone who has barely ever cooked a meal before in his life, Edwin really nailed this dish. Having very precise directions in the recipe also helped :P There were a few blunders along the way... namely when I accidentally dropped the penne that I was trying to strain right into the kitchen sink. Whoops! Back into the pot it went for a quick sterilizing boil haha. It took just about an hour to put everything together, and it came out just simply delicious. The aroma of the pan fried breaded chicken was so mouth-watering when we were putting everything together. Many times we contemplated just hoarding the entire pot for ourselves...



Dani's Chicken Parmesan with Penne

Ingredients: (serves 6)
1/2 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic
2 tsp pepper flakes
28 oz. canned diced tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 bunch basil
box of penne pasta (about 12 oz.)
2 eggs
2 cups bread crumbs
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
paprika as needed
1 lb. thin-sliced chicken breast

Directions:
1. Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and saute for a few minutes. Sprinkle in red pepper flakes, saute for another minute. Pour in diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, and add basil. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Meanwhile, bring large pot of slightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta, cook according to directions, and drain.

3. Heat remaining olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. In a bowl, whisk eggs. Place bread crumbs in a second bowl. Stir in garlic powder, salt, and pepper into bread crumbs. Dip each chicken breast into the egg, then coat with bread crumbs. Dip a second time into egg, and coat again with bread crumbs.

4. Gently place breaded chicken into heated skillet. Repeat for each chicken breast, and fry in skillet for 5 minutes per side, or until the coating is a golden brown color.

5. Stir cooked penne into tomato sauce, simmer for a few minutes. Cut up cooked chicken and toss in with pasta. Serve immediately, garnished with paprika.