Indian Food at Home

I am a very lucky girl.  I live (currently, although this changes mid-March.  Moving, remember?) in the heart of a great big city, teeming with many different cultures.  And with those cultures come some awesome food opportunities.  I live very close to the Danforth and, as I’ve blogged about before, I love the access to awesome Greek food.  A few blocks south and west of me is Toronto’s China Town East, and the Pearl Court has great local Dim Sum.  But if you go the same distance south, and a little bit east, you will find Little India.  Delicious curries, a cacophony of colours, sounds and smells… it’s almost like being in India.  No, I’ve never been there myself, but I watch the Amazing Race, and let me tell you the pedestrians here have just as little regard for vehicular traffic as they do in Bombay.  ;)  But I digress.  The point I was getting to is that I have developed a love of Indian food, and am grateful that my Newfoundlanded husband was willing to try.  Because now?  Now the whole family loves it.

The question became for us, how can we eat Indian without ordering take-out every time?  The answer came for us in the form of packaging.  No, not the frozen entrees (although the M&M Meats Butter Chicken is really very good).  I’m talking about the prepared Indian sauces you walk past in the grocery store.  We love the entire Patak line of sauces.  Our standards are their butter chicken and the tikka masala. We’ve used their korma as well, and recently we have started using the PC Butter Chicken sauce.  Unlike the Patak’s, it is ready to go.  I really like the convenience of that.

I am going to post a few recipes using these sauces as the base in the next day or two.  Keep watching!  And don’t forget to buy some of the PC naan; it is almost as good as being in a restaurant.

Red River Cereal ~ An Update

Hello Dear Reader, I have missed you.  We have just put our house up for sale (yesterday!) and I have been working like a dog to get this old girl all dolled up.  I don’t think I slept for about 4 days…  GOD we have a lot of stuff.  But she’s ready now, and I find that I have a few minutes to share with you again.  So I thought I would start by updating you on my Quest for delicious Red River cereal recipes.  I have tried a few different things in the last week or so, and by far this is my favourite.  Here’s what I do:

Ingredients

1/4 c red river cereal
1 c water
1/4 c raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
2 pinches salt
1 tsp honey (small spoon from your kitchen drawer, not a measured teaspoon)

Method

1. In a small pot combine all ingredients.  Leave the pot uncovered and bring to a boil.  Allow to boil for 5 minutes, stirring 3 or 4 times.
2. Cover and reduce heat to low.  Continue to cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Pour into your dish and enjoy.

This is a single adult serving or 2-3 servings for kids. You can easily increase the recipe to make more though.  Also, the recipe on the box suggests that the cooking time over low is really an individual thing.  If you like your cereal thinner, leave it on less time.  If you like it thicker, give it more time.  I played around with the timing and found that – for me – 15 minutes is perfect.  I love the creamy heartiness of this breakfast; and it truly has made a difference to my food intake through the day.  And really, I LOVE that!!

Chicken Lollipops

Check it out!  Since my Darling Reader Jessica pointed out that the chicken recipe I posted came from All Recipes’ website, I remembered to check out their site again.  It’s been too long since I did that…  anyway!  While I was trolling for new recipes, I came across this one:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chip-Chicken-Lollipops/Detail.aspx

How fun!  I can’t wait to try it.  And I had to share it with you too.  Enjoy!

Mexicali Chicken

I found this recipe idea on a website one day about a year ago. I have no idea where it came from… nor do I recall if this is what it’s even called; it’s what I call it I can tell you that for sure. Anyway. I made it one day and it was sooo tasty! The whole family loved it. And super easy too. Here’s what you do:

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 package fajita or taco seasoning
1 cup salsa
1 cup cheddar, grated

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Place chicken breasts in an oven safe dish and sprinkle the chicken with the fajita/taco seasoning. Turn the chicken over so that the seasoning is all over the chicken (the original recipe calls for the whole package, but I use less to cut down the sodium.  Use it all if you prefer).
3. Pour the salsa over the chicken and bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the chicken is cooked through.
4. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the cheese and cover the dish with tin foil.  Allow to stand for 5 minutes, so the cheese will melt.

We like this dinner with rice as a side because it sopps up all the salas and tastes so good.    Enjoy!

Today’s Menu – January 6, 2009

Morning Snack

We were on the road this morning (another trip to Home Depot — hopefully the last!) so snack happened in the car.  It was snack mix:

1 fun-sized box of raisins
handful of multi-grain alphabet pretzels (PC product, perfect size for Sam and fun for Connor)
handful of corn bran squares cereal

mixed altogether in a snack size ziplock baggie. It’s portable and great because (1) it takes a while for Sam to eat it, so he’s quiet in the car and (2) if it spills, it’s all dry and very easy to clean up

Lunch

grilled cheese sandwiches with cut up veggies – cucumber and broccoli

Afternoon snack

detox tea
cut up broccoli & carrot sticks
roasted garlic hummus for dip

Okay – I admit. This was my snack. After school we’re going to be in the grocery store. So snack will probably be a muffin. Sam will have a fruit cup before we go to get Connor.

Dinner

Mexicali Chicken
rice
steamed broccolli (can you tell this is just about the only veg in the house right now??? lol…)

Red River Cereal

So, I’m trying something new.  Not because it’s a new year, and not because I’m resolved to loose weight.  More because, I was cleaning the cereal cupboard (who am I kidding?  The top of the fridge) and I found an unopened box of Red River cereal.  I bought it thinking that Sam, my youngest, might like it when he was starting solid foods.  But I didn’t make it.  I didn’t even open the box.  So when I found it on Sunday I thought to myself, “Self, we oughta try this stuff.”

Yesterday I followed the instruction on the box (1/4 c dry cereal, 1 c water, pinch of salt) and I added in 1/4 c raisins and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.  It was…  okay.  It was not bad at all, but it was missing a certain je ne sais quoi.  A few friends made some suggestions as to how it could be made, and this morning I tried something a little different.  Again, I started with the basics on the side of the box and then added in 1/2 an apple cut into straws, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 1 tsp brown sugar.  Oh, and I doubled the salt from 1 pinch to 2.  And… it’s better.  But still missing…

OMG – guys, you know what it’s missing?  It’s missing that processed, instant, hardly any nutrients left, flavour.  huh…  I guess I am a junk food junkie after all…

Dear Reader, I appologize for what happened in the above paragraph.  I am eating my first few bites as I write this entry, and so what you are getting is precisely what’s on my mind.  The cereal tastes genuine.  It tastes like whole food that is nutritious and actually quite tasty all by itself.  I will keep on making Red River cereal.  Because, now that I think about it,  I was less hungry through the day yesterday.  And yes, in part that might be that we were back to routines around school, it could be too that we’re rushing madly to get the house ready to go on the market.  Or, it could be that I started my day with Red River.  Didn’t we always hear that breakfast was the most important meal of the day?  Maybe there’s something to that addage…

Do you have a favourite way to eat your Red River?  Tell us about it!  I’d love some more ideas on how to make it.

Apricot Loaf

This is an absolute favourite of mine.  I only make it at Christmas time because I eat it.  All of it.  Without hesitating.  I admit, I am slowed down by the fact that it freezes really well, and so it’s harder to chew when it’s frozen.  But I love it that much that I have been known to eat it frozen.

This is one of my Mother-in-law’s, Pauline, recipes.  I had it for the first time, Christmas 2006 when we were on the Island to celebrate the season.  Just as an aside, Pauline makes an outstanding sweet tray.  And I am happy to say that her son learned very well from her, and wow.  If you ever need a sweet tray come holiday time, ask one of them!  But I digress.  When I asked for the recipe she happily gave it to me.  I was surprised to learn that it’s actually a cheese cake!  Not like you’d expect though.  It is an incredibly moist, flavourful loaf bursting with fresh, rich flavours.  And really, it’s pretty simple to make too.  Here’s what you do:

Ingredients
2 cups of water
½ cup light coloured raisins
1 cup dried apricots, dried
1 cup butter
8 oz cream cheese
1¼ cup white sugar
1½ tsp vanilla
4 eggs
2½ cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder

Method

1. Put the water, raisins, apricots (I often make this just with apricots.  If you are going to do this, just double the apricot measurement and omit the raisins) and ¼ cup sugar into a saucepan. With the cover on, bring to a boil and cook for 15 – 20 minutes, until fruit is soft and water has mostly evaporated. Remove from heat and allow to cool.  I usually dump the fruit out into a colander to help it cool faster.
2. While the fruit is cooking, preheat oven to 350°F and lightly grease a bunt pan.
3. In a large bowl cream together the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar, vanilla and eggs.
4. In a small bowl, stir the flour and baking powder with a whisk.
5. Add the fruit mixture to the cream cheese mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon.
6. Add the flour to the fruit and cheese mixture, stirring until combined.
7. Pour batter into the bunt pan and bake for 60-65 minutes.

Like I mentioned above, this freezes really well.  I generally cool it completely and then cut the cake into 3 pieces, immediately freezing two of them.  To do this, I wrap the cake in plastic wrap and then wrap it again in tin foil.  Then I just toss them in the freezer, and we have fresh cake on hand for any of the many sweet trays we make over the holiday season.

Enjoy!

Baked Beans

As many of you know, I am married to a Newfoundlander.  And while it’s true that Newfoundland cuisine is generally centred around fish (which, you may or may not know, is a term only given to cod.  Everything else is “bass” or “perch” or whatever species of fish you’re cooking) there are other delicacies.  Like beans, say.  For dinner every Christmas eve, we have a good ‘ole fish fry.  My man cuts the fish up into small pieces, makes the batter, and fries the fish in a pan of vegetable oil.  And it is divine….  many look forward to this meal all year long!  I know I do.

“But,” you might be saying, “what does this have to do with beans?”  Well, I’ll tell you dear Reader.  This year we were having some people join us for dinner that do not *shock* *horror* eat fish.  So, we needed a fish alternate that also fit in with the rest of the menu.  Because there was no way I was making two entire meals for our dinner gathering on Christmas eve!  In the end, we decided to supplement the protein portion of the meal with baked beans.  This is a meal that requires pre-planning, in that the beans soak over night, and then cook in the slow cooker for 6 hours on high.  But me-oh-my they were some good.  Here’s what we did:

Ingredients

1 kg dry navy beans
bay leaf
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup ketchup
1 medium onion, diced
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard (Keen’s brand is what I use)
2-3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
3 slices of bacon, cut up into pieces
reserved bean liquid

Method

1. Cover beans with water and soak overnight.
2. Rinse beans then bring to a boil in approximately 1 quart of water, bay leaf and garlic – simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Turn off heat and let beans stand for approximately 1 1/2 hours until soft. Drain and reserve the bean liquid. Discard bay leaf and garlic. If – like me – you prefer to use the minced garlic in a jar, just leave it in there.  I was a little worried about how it would affect the beans, but it had no negative impact that I could determine.  So!  There you go.
4. Mix together remaining ingredients (excluding beans and bacon) in the slow cooker bowl.
5. Add beans to dish and stir well, getting all the beans coated in the sauce. You can top it off with some of the reserved bean liquid if you think it looks a little scant on liquid.
6. Arrange bacon on top.
7. Put the lid on your slow cooker and set it to high for 6 hours. Normally when I use my slow cooker I do not remove the lid and stir, as it takes too long for it to heat up again.  With the beans though, I did.  About 3 times.  at the 5.5 hour mark, I should have added in about 1 cup of the reserved bean liquid.  The end result was delicious, but not as saucy as we would have liked.

You can just as easily omit the bacon in this recipe and make it vegetarian.  Everyone at the table loved them, and ate almost as much of the beans as they did the fish!  Of course, as the hosts we really should have provided some Beano as an accompaniment…  apparently not everyone’s constitution can handle the beans.

If any of you have a favourite baked bean recipe, share it with us!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Once upon a time, in a decade gone by, I was craving a chocolate chip cookie. And not just any cookie, but a really good one with a rich buttery flavour. So I found a new recipe and I LOVE it. For Christmas, and other special occaisions, I have tweaked this outstanding cookie to include another favourite of many people: cashews. If you, dear Reader, like nuts in your chocolate cookie, then please do make the following modification: reduce the milk & semi-sweet chips to 1/2 cup each and add in 1/2 cup cahsews. You still wind up with a jam-packed cookie (just like I love ‘em) but you get the added decadence of the butteriest of all nuts.

Ingredients

1 1/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 c packed light brown sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
1/4 c white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 c milk chocolate chips
3/4 c semisweet chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Place all ingredients except the chocolate chips into a bowl and mix on medium speed until blended. Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix again.
3. Add the chocolate chips and stir.
4. Drop from a teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes until cookies are lightly browned.
5. Allow to cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then use lifter to transfer to cooling racks.

These were very soft, incredibly delicious and very satisfying.  I am not a lover of nuts in my cookies, but those who are have raved about the small tweak noted above.

Enjoy!

Bark

It’s worse that my bite.  HAHA!!  Okay, bad joke.  And really, I have to say that I make pretty delicious bark.  And the best part?  It’s so freakin’ easy.

Seriously!

You need a double boiler to make this stuff.  Do you know what a double boiler is?  It’s that pot you got in your set that has another sort-a pot that nests inside.  Some pot sets come with one that has holes in to too, for steaming stuff.  Use the one without the holes and you’re using your double boiler.  My other trick is to use the chocolate melting wafers you can get in the bulk barn.  That way you don’t have to worry about tempering them and all that; they are ready for just straight melting in a double boiler.

Today I am making 4 kinds of bark.  And really, not much of any of the four kinds.  Just a little to flesh out the last sweet tray of the season.  Here’s what I’ve got going on:

Ingredients

Wax paper or parchment paper
8 cups chocolate wafers (either milk or dark.  I prefer dark, but everyone else loves milk.  So I’m using milk.)
1 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
1 cup Rice Krispies
1 cup peanuts, divided into 2 1/2 cup piles
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup craisins

Method

1. Put some water in the bottom of your double boiler.  Not a lot, maybe about 1 cup.  Put the top on the double boiler and turn the heat to med-low.  The idea is to get the water hot, but not a hard boil.  When the water starts to boil, reduce your heat to minimum.  If it’s too hot the chocolate will burn and not be smooth and spreadable.
2. While the pan is heating, line a cookie sheet with wax paper or parchment paper.  Set aside.
3. Once the double boiler is hot, pour 2 cups of chocolate wafers into the pan.  Allow them to heat for a minute or two and stir.   It will take maybe 5 minutes for the wafers to be completely melted.
4. Once they are almost entirely melted, add in either the coconut, or Rice Crispies, or 1/2 nuts with 1/2 cup raisins or craisins.  Stir it all up and then dump it onto your prepared cookie sheet.
5. Spread it thinly (so that it’s breakable) on the wax paper and then put the cookie sheet in the freezer.  Allow it to harden for about 20-30 minutes.
6. Break it into pieces and store in an air-tight container, in a cool place.

Repeat these steps until you have used all of your ingredients.  Now, of course you don’t have to make 8 cups worth of bark.  That just happens to be what I had on hand, you see.  The ratio you need to be concerned with when making bark is 2:1.  Two parts chocolate, one part filler.  So, 2 cups of chocolate and 1 cup of coconut.  And by the way, if you love those willocrisp packs of macaroons, Mother of GOD you have got to try this.  So good!!!  My husband was practically reduced to tears over this one.

Traditionally bark is loaded up with almonds.  And let me tell you: I *love* almond bark.  The problem is that I don’t have any almonds on hand.  So I improvised with peanuts.  Salted peanuts.  And may I just say?  YUM.

My show-stopper bark is made with white chocolate and then filled with pistachios and craisins.  The best part about that combination for me is that I hate white chocolate, so I am never tempted to eat it!  Means that there is always some for guests and hostess presents.    It looks really festive, and it is a welcome gift.  But do yourself a favour and pay for the shelled pistachios in the bulk barn.  Your hands will thank you!

Okay.  I’m going to stop talking now.  I have missed you Readers, can you tell? And so I am reluctant to leave you.  But I’ll be back!  And soon, I promise.