Jumbo Scallops from Chef'd

Fasten your seat belts.  Making this dish was one heck of a adventurous trip!  

This final presentation of this dish made me feel like a talented chef at a trendy restaurant.

The final recipe I tested out from Chef'd is 

Jumbo Scallops with Wild Mushroom Risotto and Truffle Oil

I. Love. Truffle. Oil.

Enough said. Right? 

Wrong.

1. The Shiitake mushrooms did not appear as fresh as the portobello mushroom I received. I did end up discarding a soft and mushy part of one of the Shiitake mushrooms and was able to forgive the other blemishes on the mushrooms.
2.  Again, (must be a batch issue) the chives I received for this recipe were not the freshest and I had to throw away much of it due to brown, soft, mushy texture to the Chives. I was able to get enough chives for the recipe by combining the fresher chives out of the two containers I received.
3. The arborio rice did not look as expected in my opinion. It looked like a smaller grain of traditional rice rather than what I am used to seeing which looks more pearlescent (click here for wiki article & photo).  
4. I probably shouldn't have chosen to make the risotto on a 90 degree day. I essentially gave myself a de facto facial from all the steam rising from the risotto as it requires constant stirring for about 30 minutes. I had to summon my husband to take over for a bit so I could cool down as I was so overheated!
5. The real adventure began while I was making the butter seared scallops.  I melted the two pats of butter along with 1 table spoon of olive oil on high heat as instructed in the recipe.  All was, "searing well" (haha) until the final moment as I was removing the last seared scallop when the butter/olive oil mixture became over heated and smoked us out of the house!  The windows were flown open, the hot sauté pan was placed out on the deck until cooled, and sheet pans were brought out to fan the smoke out of the house. Thankfully, my 14 week old daughter is apparently not fazed by sounding fire alarms. My husband also renewed and expanded his decree that I am banned from frying foods of any kind...including pan frying.
• As a side note- I was banned from frying foods in our house about 5 years ago when I was trying to make fried pickles I accidentally overheated the oil. When I dropped in the battered pickles the oil popped up and out of the large sauce pot I was using. 
• I freaked out and went to quickly move the pot from the hot burner of our smooth surface cooktop to reduce the heat. Little did I know I moved a little too quick and a decent amount of oil slopped over the rim and literally fried the skin on several of my fingers and the oil that landed on the hot burner and ignited. 
• We ended up with a fire on our stove top, smoke grime on the wall behind the stove, stink of burnt oil permeating everything and last but not least my husband rushing in to grab the pot of hot oil (giving himself a minor burn in the process) and the hot, smoking pot (oil included) being thrown out of the slider door into the snow in our backyard.  
• I ended up with very painful burns on 3 fingers of my right hand.  My skin was literally crispy like fried chicken. It was horrifying. 
• I remember the next day going into work and floating down to the emergency room where one of the doctors there asked me what I had done and prescribed me Silvadene topical cream and daily dressing changes until healed. Luckily I have no scars from the incident. Thank you Dr. S! Thus is the story of why I am no longer allowed to fry food in the house. 
6. The truffle oil...oh that glorious, amazing, truffle oil. 

Overall impression:

The recipe had a gorgeous presentation especially with the toasted parmesan crisps which added that final touch of class. 

The overall risotto was lackluster in regards to flavor. 

I feel that the port wine would have been put to better use in my dessert wine glass than in the risotto. The small amount of port wine really did not add much flavor and I think a dry white wine would have served this recipe more justice. 

I do think that the lemon zest and juice did add a nice subtle flavor to the risotto albeit not enough flavor.   I regularly make mushroom risotto and I feel that the recipe I use is far superior and stands on its own. 

The scallops were simple in their preparation calling for 1/2 tsp of salt on EACH side of the scallops which I felt was obscene. Each succulent scallop was sprinkled with a small amount of salt on each side rather than the 1/2 tsp called for.

The truffle oil is really what made this recipe go from bland to "oh my goodness I've died and gone to heaven".  

Once the truffle oil was drizzled, the Veuve Clicquot Brute Carte Jaune poured (much preferred over a the dryness of a chardonnay) all bets were off. 

This dish became one of my favorite dishes of all time. 

Each bite was amazing.

All hail the magical powers of truffle oil. 

Ahi Tuna Au Poivre with Warm Artichoke-Farro Salad

I have been eyeing Chef'd for quite a while.

I had heard rave reviews of Chef'd in recent months and I really like the idea that Chef'd is not a subscription based service.

You can pick from a plethora of meal options rather than from a list of 4-6 options like the other subscription companies I have tried so far.

One downside of Chef'd is their meals are pretty expensive with most meals running about 30 dollars (give or take).  I decided I would pick two recipes that included what I dub, "fancy ingredients".

The first recipe I made is the Ahi Tuna Au Poivre with Warm Artichoke-Farro Salad designed by chef Robert Irvine who you may know from the shows Dinner: Impossible and Worst Cooks in America -shown on Food Network.

The two ingredients that attracted me to this recipe were the Ahi Tuna and the farro.

Neither of us has ever tried farro before and with all the recent hype over the past few years about the health benefits of this ancient grain I figured I would give this recipe a go.

My initial impression of the Chef'd box is that there is a TON of plastic! I feel that the packaging for Blue Apron and Marley Spoon were more eco-friendly (if you can even say that about these food delivery services).

Look at all of this packaging material:

The final pile of plastic bags (seen above) is just a portion of the packaging utilized by this one recipe alone.

Review of the final product:

1) This is a unique dish (au poivre prepared foods are usually associated with steak) which has a incredible combination of savory spices (coriander, mustard, cumin, fennel, ground peppercorns, thyme) and sweetness (from the shallots, lemon juice, oranges, and balsamic glaze).

2) Chef'd is very expensive as noted above- I think I will lean towards purchasing Chef'd dishes when I am looking to make a more "sophisticated" dinner.  I think that utilizing Chef'd for a small dinner party would surely make quite the impression with guests.

3) This dish was a pleasure to make as I found it simple yet, more technically challenging because I have never cooked Ahi Tuna steaks which were more delicate when handled than I anticipated.

4) I am less than impressed with the freshness of the chives.  The chives have seen better and brighter days.  More than half of the chives in the package were brown and mushy.

5) The farro that I was so excited to consume was very good! When combined with the roasted potatoes and salad I can truly say it was divine. I can see why so many people consider it the new "fad grain" like quinoa or sprouted grains.

6) Besides tasting phenomenal, the final plated dish seriously looks fantastic.

I mean...look at it!

Review of Blue Apron's Sweet Chili Chicken

I have mixed feelings writing this review of Blue Apron's Sweet Chili Chicken with Tinkerbell Peppers, Sugar Snap Peas & Coconut Rice.

I want to love this dish and I would certainly eat it again in the future.

This dish tasted great, was seasoned fairly well, looked beautiful but, it was a horrorshow to make.

Let me repeat- this. dish. was. a. horrorshow. to. make.

When I was prepping the produce I marveled at how beautiful the produce combination looked on the cutting board.  As I prepped the vegetables the scent of the chopped ginger and garlic was intoxicating.

Personally, I will never make this dish again despite how good it tasted in the end.

Critique:

1) Prep time was NOT fifteen minutes as the recipe dictates.

It was more than 30 minutes by the time I was done with my chicken-drama (see critique 2), washing, cutting, and readying the other ingredients for cooking.

2) The packaging of the boneless, skinless chicken breasts was for lack of a better word was terrible.
It was vacuum sealed in a thick, black, plastic package.  There is no "open here" tab where you can separate and open the vacuum seal as similar vacuum sealed products have.  Instead you need to cut it with scissors to open.

I started by cutting one end of the bag and the vacuum seal was not broken.  Onward to cutting a second side to break the vacuum seal.

After I finished cutting the packaging open thick, gloopy, pale red/brown/pink "stuff" the chicken breasts were stored with started to slowly leak out (there was also a surprising amount of it in the package- unnecessary amount really). It was almost the consistency of maple syrup. It was rather disconcerting.

The thick liquid ended up getting stopped up behinds the chicken breasts due to the way I cut the packaging. When I went to drain the package further out popped the chicken breasts into the sink.

Luckily, they fell into my prep sink which tends to be a little cleaner.  I ended up doing a quick hail mary save before they went into the sink drain (as they were sliding rapidly towards the drain in the excessive amount of maple syrup consistency goop it was originally stored in).

The five second rule was employed and I rinsed the chicken off (I never rinse raw meat off due to the risk of splashing around bacteria which can cause entero illnesses-this is the first time I have done it since finding this factoid out in nursing school).

After rinsing the chicken off and adding it to the frying pan to cook I proceeded to worry about entero bacteria and had to employ the assistance of my husband to turn on the sink water and squirt antibacterial hand-soap into my hands so I could wash them since they were covered in maple syrup consistency chicken juice.


3) Once I finished step one of the recipe which was the preparation of ingredients I skipped step 2 in the recipe directions as I did not want to wash my hands again after handling the raw chicken when adding it to the pan to cook (which is step 3 in the directions).

I feel that the steps should be adjusted to account for this to help reduce possible cross contamination of foods when cooking- especially the rice which is cooked primarily on low heat once the liquid has come to a boil.

4) The packaging for the sweet chili sauce had leaked as it was not sealed correctly and made a mess of the other "knick knacks" items (ponzu sauce container, ginger packaging, coconut milk powder package).   I would like to have seen a different package choice be utilized such as a sealed package you can cut with scissors or tear one end off of and squirt the sauce out (similar to Newman's Own single serving salad dressings you can buy at a cafe to go with to-go/ pre-made salads).

5) It was dangerous pan-frying the chicken and vegetables as the oil in the pan overheated quickly (as suggested I had set the stove temp on medium-high) and bits of oil were splashing up out of the pan onto the stove and also on my arms as I attempted to stir the cooking food in the pan.  I ended up utilizing a really long wooden spoon and performed what looked like a sad attempt at fencing. I felt tempted to shout "En-garde!" as I was attempting to stir the ingredients. I likely would have if I didn't have my 13 week old sleeping down the hall ;-)

5) The coconut rice....oh that coconut rice.  What a stressful time cooking that was.  My husband actually came over and hugged me while I was cooking because he could hear me saying, "you dirty bird" and requesting him to get more paper towels ASAP as I had used the rest of the roll mopping up the mess.

The mess arises from the reconstituted coconut milk boiling over the pot and all over the stove once the jasmine rice had been added after the mixture was boiling and the heat reduced to low with the cover placed on the pot.

The coconut milk smelled terrible as it burned on the stove and made a lot of smoke. I had to think quick, wet a bunch of paper towels and lift the pot off the burner to do some quick swipes with the damp cloth to stop the burning process. This is most likely not the best thing to have done as I ran the risk of cracking my ceramic cook-top due to the temperature differential.

I wasn't thinking about anything except for the smoke setting off the fire alarms and the terrible smell.

The directions for the recipe states that once covered, "cook 12-14 minutes or until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is tender".

Maybe it was the extra fluid that had boiled over but the rice took a lot longer than 12-14 minutes to cook. Once I hit 14 minutes I had noticed the rice had turned into a lumpy/thick mass of rice and was not tender when taste tested.

I ended up slowly adding more water and cooking for a longer period of time.  I am guessing it took about 25-30 minutes to cook.

The final product was tender but, did not fluff up nicely with a fork and remained a creamy textured, coconut flavored, lumpy mass of rice. You can see a bit of the lumpy rice above in the picture of the final product once it was plated.

When plating our meal we decided to use a bowl and place the rice on the bottom and the stir-fry on top.

I ended up mixing the rice and stir-fry together to help break apart the rice and distribute more evenly since the rice mass was a bit too intense in the coconut flavor department when eaten by itself.

Review of Brown Butter Gnocchi by Blue Apron

Brown Butter Gnocchi with Summer Squash, Almonds & Soft-Boiled Eggs

This. Dish. Is. Fantastic.

This dish is a cup of warm apple cider, sitting by a crackling fire, and the smell of newborn baby wrapped up in a soft, fresh from the dryer-warmed blanket.

Not literally but, this dish is a real comfort food dish (the above listed are some of my favorite comfort items FYI).

As for my personal list of comfort foods this dish ranks right up there with mashed potatoes, macaroni n' cheese, apple pie, and vanilla milkshakes.

Review:

I love that with minimal effort we were able to create a restaurant quality dish.

The final product was filling yet, did not feel heavy after being eaten.  Craig and I have never had a pasta dish with a soft boiled egg on top but, it really added to the savory flavor of the dish.  We both really enjoyed the nutty flavoring paired with the bite of lemon.  It was that beautiful mix of tart & savory which is not found in too many of the dinners we tend to eat.

Despite the minimal effort, this dish was a pleasure to make.  I loved the nutty fragrance that permeated my kitchen as I added the chopped almonds to the brown butter and summer squash.

Again, the produce and "knick knacks" (i.e- eggs, creme friache, almonds, etc...) as previously mentioned in my last post were very fresh and came un-damaged.

Our only critique is the recipe calls for WAY more salt than we are used to consuming (I have noticed all of the meals that we have made thus far from both Marley Spoon & Blue Apron all call for too much salt).

When we were making our meal we simply omitted the salt when boiling our gnocchi and the additional salt we were instructed to use after adding the almonds to the cooking squash & brown butter.

We will definitely be making this dish again in the future.

Review of Blue Apron's Empanadas with Tomato-Cucumber Salad

Yesterday, I received my first Blue Apron delivery.

This is a review of Empanadas de Picadillo with Tomato-Cucumber Salad & Lime Crema.

I have tried empanadas before made by a friend's mother who is from the Dominican Republic.

They. Were. Stellar.

I chose to make this dish with the glimmer of hope that I could possibly replicate those amazing empanadas.

Plus, I wouldn't have to make the dough for the empanada wrapper.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the tomato was stored in a cardboard container to help reduce risk of damage during processing and shipment.

The produce- tomato, scallions, lime, and cucumber were all in excellent condition and appeared fresh upon arrival. Unlike the Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon produce which overall had seen better and fresher days.

Overall, the dish was okay.

Critique:

1) I feel that the dish was on the bland side.

I expected the dish to have more depth and flavors. In particular, I was disappointed at the lack of "bite" to the dish.  I was especially dissatisfied with the blandness of the empanada's beef filling which relied on basic Mexican spice blend aka: taco seasoning for the bulk of it's flavor.

In my opinion, I would have added fresh diced peppers such as poblanos to add some heat and some white onions to further add some complexity to the flavor of the filling.

I found myself slathering on the Lime Crema to add more flavor to the empanadas.

My husband on the other hand has no criticisms of the meal and did not feel the dish was bland.  Worthy of noting my husband prefers a blander diet than I do and also does not prefer hot sauce in general (his preferred hot sauce is Frank’s Red Hot and when he is feeling adventurous minuscule amounts of Sriracha).

2) The Tomato-Cucumber Salad was a refreshing side dish especially on a hot summer day.

The empanadas recipe produces extra beef filling (I estimate about a quarter cup) which I was not sure what to do with.

I decided to alter the salad recipe by adding the extra beef empanada filling and combining.

I ended up liking the salad more than the empanadas but again, the salad was on the bland side as well in my opinion.

Overall, I feel that this dish was good but, needs more complex flavors and heat. I think the dish is milder than expected to cater to the broad spectrum of customers- many of whom I suspect dislike spicy foods.

For now, I will have to continue my search for a stellar empanada recipe.

2014

Happy Monday and Happy New Year!

I started this year off on the right foot.  I booked myself a Swedish Massage (my first) on new years day.  Let me say- best decision ever.

Also had a mani/pedi around Christmas, and a facial last Saturday. 

New Years Resolution:

The hubs and I have decided that this year we will "get our act together" and better organize our home and plans.

We are nicknaming this year YOBP in honor of this.

So far this year we are on a roll!

We had a snow storm January 2-3rd which left our area with quite a bit of snow and a day home from work on Friday the 3rd.

Those of you who know me I CANNOT, "DO NOTHING" UNLESS I AM SICK.  To my husband's dismay this means that I have a perpetual need to leave the house at least once per a day or I feel like I have done nothing and wasted my day.  

To combat this- my husband regularly encourages me to go out and if he notices that I have stayed home almost all day then he will come up with suggestions to keep me busy.

Yes- I understand the child-like quality of this...it's endearing right?...I hope?...maybe? (hides face and shakes head).


Anyway- while home Friday I was reading through my Real Simple magazine which had an advertisement that jumped right out at me.

"30% off all Elfa closet organizing systems"  at The Container Store.

I was a goner.

Immediately jumped online and designed my own closet organizer for the master bedroom. Did a quick market analysis and presented my case to the hubs.  He agreed it was a fair deal.  I then stated, "going to buy it right now!"

I bundled myself up and drove to Brookline, MA to the nearest container store (about 20ish miles away- in the poorly plowed snow). Designed a custom closet with one of their reps and handed them my credit card.

Holy. Wow. Talk. About. Expensive. Impulse. Buy.

Also paid for delivery and installation too. The hubs estimates we have increased our storage capacity in the closet by about 30%.

Below is the finished project:

We removed the old sliding doors to the closet and we are now looking for double doors in white which we hope to buy and install soon.

We also took the time to go through all of our clothes and we now have two large bag fulls of clothes to donate. 


Other projects in the works:

Bath tub renovation:

Our bathtub is horrifying...I mean...horrifying.

The folks we bought this house from specialized in painting and caulking everything. I MEAN EVERYTHING.

Yes everyone- we have a purple and white bathtub.  Do you also see the discolored subway tiles?

The previous home owners thought painting the purple bathtub white (which started chipping immediately and revealed we indeed had a purple tub) and then putting a "protective layer" of caulk OVER the grout in the shower tiles was a great idea. It is impossible to clean under the caulked grout. *ICK*

Back to the bathroom renovation- we have picked out a new Sterling brand jetted bathtub, shower wall surround by Swanstone, sliding shower door by MAAX, and shower faucet/control set by Symmons.

We are very excited- everything should be delivered within the next 3 weeks or so.

Will post photos when the project is complete.

I have also ordered black out cellular blinds for the craft room (which can double as a bedroom), guest bedroom, and the master bedroom.  I bought non-blackout cellular blinds for our bathrooms.  I was *this* close to buying roman shades and had to pull myself back- cellular shades were half the price.  I can't say I care THAT MUCH about blinds.

The blinds are white colored and should be arriving this week.

I have also pulled down the valance over the sliding doors in the living room.  I have disliked the valances that came with the home.  I still have no idea if I want to pull down the vertical blinds, keep, them, put up a new valance, or...add long curtains on the ends and keep them pulled back. OR- just have nothing and patch up/pain the wall where the curtain rod/ vertical blind track was.

Original Valance

Current Photo (sorry for low quality photo)

The curtains on the side of a linen fabric curtain which I actually bought to use in the craft room.  I put them up to see how it the window would look with long curtains off to the side but I don't know what to think.

Any advice on window treatments?

Other projects we hope to work on this year is painting the house, finish changing the switch plates from yellow to white, replace hallway and master bath lights, go through things in storage and donate what we do not need.

I would like to have our home organized by the end of 2014. 

On a final note- we are also trying to organize things in our personal lives like possibly booking two vacations during the upcoming year.  We shall see! Very exciting prospect.

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