The New Chef's Journal

Last Sunday, after a weekend of heavy meals, my girlfriend and I decided we needed a lighter dinner. After looking around at a bunch of vegetarian recipes, I decided to mix together a few to make my own dish. The balsamic vinegar marinade gave the portobellos a great flavor, which mixed really well with the vegetables and tomato sauce. This turned out to be a really good healthy, vegetarian option. You could use almost any combination of veggies to stuff the mushrooms, but I was really happy with how my picks turned out. Ingredients 4 portobello mushrooms, stems and gills removed 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon onion powder 1 cup balsamic vinegar 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 small yellow onion, diced 1 small yellow squash, cut into 1/2 inch pieces 6 ounce jar marinated artichokes, drained 1 red pepper, cut into 1/2 inch pieces 2 handfuls baby spinach leaves 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce (I used half a jar of Paul Newman tomato & basil sauce) Shredded mozzarella cheese ...

I was inspired to make this recipe after trying the chana masala at the White Tiger restaurant on Capital Hill and at the Tasty Kabob food truck. Chana masala is a spicy Indian chickpea dish. More traditional versions of this dish use amchur powder (dried mango powder), but that's pretty hard to find in the US, so I went with an alternative version. This recipe comes a blog called Orangette . The author notes that her and her husband have some disputes over whether or not to include yogurt in the recipe. Personally, I agree with her that the yogurt adds a nice cool flavor to the dish, but you can take it out if you prefer. I was very happy with how this dish turned out. Its a very nice vegetarian option if you're looking for one. Ingredients Good-quality olive oil 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped 2 medium cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp cumin seeds ½ tsp ground coriander ¼ tsp ground ginger 1 tsp garam masala 3 cardamom pods, lightly crushed 1 28-ounce can whole peeled t...

One of my favorite things about living on Capitol Hill is how close I am to Eastern Market. The market is a great place to walk around, pick up fresh fruits and vegetables, and get brunch. A cool recent development has been the addition of cooking demonstrations on Saturday mornings. Jonathan Bardzik, author of the outstanding food blog, What I Haven't Cooked Yet , cooks some delicious food and gives very entertaining performances teaching the audience how to make his dishes. This recipe comes from a demonstration he gave of various Thanksgiving side dishes. It's a bad sign that it took me until Martin Luther King Day to post a Thanksgiving dish. I really need to get up to speed with my posts. I'm not normally a big cranberry sauce fan. The canned cranberry sauce that comes out as one gelatinous blob creeps the bejeezus out of me. This cranberry compote is lighter than most cranberry sauce recipes. It's also more savory and less sweet than most versions. I thought it ...

It occurred to me recently that I've gotten lazy about posting stuff to this blog (I missed the entire month of December), so one of my New Year's resolutions is to post more regularly. I've still been cooking a fair amount; I have three other recipes with photos ready to be posted. Two of those turned out well, the other not so much. I'm posting this chicken pot pie recipe that I made last night ahead of the older ones, because I'm excited about how good it was and it made me feel like posting. This recipe comes from allrecipes.com , though I made some of my own tweaks to it. I was considering getting a chicken pot pie from a new place on H Street called Dangerously Delicious Pies , but decided to make my own. I still really want to try that place out. Their menu has a great selection of both sweet and savory pies. The recipe is below. My changes are in italics. I added some extra vegetables and herbs to give it some more flavor. The pie turned out really well ...

A couple of weeks ago I was very bored and really wanted something sweet, so I googled "best cookie recipes." After a few minutes of searching I found this great recipe for homemade Oreos on smittenkitchen.com . This recipe is really simple, but very delicious. The cookies are a bit softer and chewier than the Oreos you get at the store, which I liked. If you're looking for a change from making your standard chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies, these are worth a try. Ingredients For the chocolate wafers: 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/4 cups sugar 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter 1 large egg For the filling: 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter 1/4 cup vegetable shortening 2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract Directions 1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. ...

I've recently gone on a bit of a pumpkin kick, making a couple of pumpkin pies and this pumpkin chili recipe. The recipe comes from verybestbaking.com . I was happy with how this recipe turned out, though it was not quite perfect. I initially stuck directly to recipe and found that that chili had a nice pumpkin flavor, but lacked spice. To kick it up a bit I added about a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. This definitely added some spiciness, but drowned out the pumpkin flavor. Either way it still tasted good and the pureed pumpkin added a nice creaminess you don't usually find in chili. Anyone have any tips for adding heat to a dish without drowning out the underlying flavors? Ingredients 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1/2 cup chopped onion 1 cup chopped red bell pepper 1 clove garlic, finely chopped 1 lb. ground turkey 2 cans (14.5 oz each) no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained 1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin 1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce 1 can (15.25 oz.) kid...

A couple weeks ago my girlfriend and I went apple picking at the Stribling Orchard in Markham, Virginia. If you're looking for a place to go apple picking near DC, I'd recommend it. It's a beautiful spot and all of the fruit I've gotten there has been excellent. Their store also has delicious baked goods, salad dressings, salsa and bbq sauce. The recipe I got from the Food Network calls for 6 Jonagold apples, which are a hybrid of Jonathan and Golden Delicious. Since the orchard didn't have any Jonagolds, I just used 3 Jonathans and 3 Golden Delicious. I made the crust using Amish butter from the Agora Farms stand at Eastern Market. Amish butter was recently recommended to me and I was amazed at how much better it tastes that Land O' Lakes or Country Crock. It's great on bread and it really enhanced the flavor and texture of the crust. Ingredients Piecrust: 2 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 2/3 cup shortening 6 tablespoons cold water, plus 5 table...