I made this recipe a few weeks ago and didn't like it immediately, but it grew on me the longer and longer it stuck around in the fridge. It also made about 6-7 servings, so I was able to eat it for my entire week of OB nights. Quite the lifesaver. It came from a book called The Indian Slow Cooker. I haven't had the opportunity to flip through the book yet, but the description on the author's website (linked above) makes it sound right up my ally. I wonder if the other recipes are as good, and what portion of them are vegetarian. I found the recipe for aloo gobi in an interview with the author on ABC local. I made few changes. I would recommend not adding tomato. Also, I used 2 jalapenos (seeds removed) instead of the 3-4 chiles called for. Finally, my garam masala used equal parts black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom.
Enjoy!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
a cop-out
My fellow bloggers here make their recipes into adventures. Turkeys being mugged on the fire escape, cats playing scrabble, and so forth. My offering today is in a minimalist vein, very much influenced by my churlish attitude about the new regime applicable to the so-called "food" chez nous. We are asked to produce beans. Here goes:
- Pour a bunch of mixed dried beans into a saucepan, looking the other way.
- add water and soak. This is the virtuous part. Was informed that frozen beans from Whole Foods tasted "musty."
- Pour off soaking water and add a lot of vegetable stock. This is the prophylactic part.
- add 1 T of super-hot never-cooked salsa from the g-store.
- chop and add a head of baby bok choy.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Thanksgiving!
Well, I've started thinking about thanksgiving. I guess this appropriate given that it's, oh, 5 days away and I"m having 10 people over for dinner plus 4 more for dessert.
I have this weird personality quirk where I always end up inviting lots of random people to any event I am holding. Let's call it graciousness. Anyways, six of the people coming are some of my dearest friends in the world, so I did pretty well keeping it under control this time around.
Maybe my vision of thanksgiving as a time when lots of people you don't know show up and casually eat tons of food comes from Etta's thanksgivings so long ago. Just a house full of "kin", pre-made biscuits, and m&ms. It was kind of magical.
Anyways ... I want my thanksgiving to be magical too. Or at least not an outright disaster. I think the presence of Libby will guarantee that I don't majorly screw anything up, set things on fire or give people food poisoning. She also knows how to make stuffing and gravy, which is a major plus since I had no intention of figuring those things out.
But I'm actually really excited about making a Turkey myself! Last year when I did thanksgiving for my, what shall we call them, ex pseudo in laws, I opted for cornish game hens so I could run a 10 k in the morning. Well, not this time. Its go big or go home this year. A local, free range, organic turkey has been ordered. This bird grew up in marin county and probably had soy green tea lattes every morning for breakfast, so some of my berkeley-induced guilt has been lifted. Amazingly enough, 9 of the 10 people coming to dinner are NOT vegetarians. So I'm really tempted to put bacon into everything and just give Laura some chips to munch on. But in the end I'm too nice a person and I'll keep the sides all veggie.
Anyways, the bird. It is going to be off. the. hook. I spent about 1 hr talking about how to cook turkey while I was riding through the berkeley hills with a friend yesterday morning. This chick is already the matriarch of her huge bosnian/texan family, and she regularly has 20 - 40 people over for Thanksgiving. She's tried a lot of things, and has settled on brining. I'm going to use her brining recipe, which calls for a bottle of riesling, mustard seed, coriander, and about 10 other spices. She's hooking me up with a brining bag and the plan is to let willy (that's the turkey's name) chill on my fire escape for a day. Hopefully he won't get mugged.
Other than the bird, stuffing, and gravy, libs and I are going to make creamed onions, green bean casserole, brussel sprouts, collards, glazed sweet potatoes, cornbread, and pecan pie. And maybe persimmon pudding if we get to it. Plus people are bringing things of course. Rationally, I know its going to be hella food, but I'm still worried that there won't be enough. I have no idea why I always think this. Really, I should probably be more worried about the wine situation. I'm hoping people will bring some and I don't know how much I should have on hand. I know Mom does appertifs and pairings and the whole deal.
Other than food, I suppose I need to worry about "the table". In Martha Stewart speak I suppose this means things like place settings, centerpieces or candles. I have a much more basic concern about the "the table". Namely, I don't have one. I have the little one in my kitchen, but I think we'll use that for prep and serving. And I have my desk. But I don't have a table for 10 people. Shit, I don't even have more than four chairs. I suppose I need to address this problem ...
Anyways, lots to do. And I also need to prep a lecture for tuesday and re-do some analyses which should have been done by last friday. I guess I'll be buying frozen pie shells :)
I have this weird personality quirk where I always end up inviting lots of random people to any event I am holding. Let's call it graciousness. Anyways, six of the people coming are some of my dearest friends in the world, so I did pretty well keeping it under control this time around.
Maybe my vision of thanksgiving as a time when lots of people you don't know show up and casually eat tons of food comes from Etta's thanksgivings so long ago. Just a house full of "kin", pre-made biscuits, and m&ms. It was kind of magical.
Anyways ... I want my thanksgiving to be magical too. Or at least not an outright disaster. I think the presence of Libby will guarantee that I don't majorly screw anything up, set things on fire or give people food poisoning. She also knows how to make stuffing and gravy, which is a major plus since I had no intention of figuring those things out.
But I'm actually really excited about making a Turkey myself! Last year when I did thanksgiving for my, what shall we call them, ex pseudo in laws, I opted for cornish game hens so I could run a 10 k in the morning. Well, not this time. Its go big or go home this year. A local, free range, organic turkey has been ordered. This bird grew up in marin county and probably had soy green tea lattes every morning for breakfast, so some of my berkeley-induced guilt has been lifted. Amazingly enough, 9 of the 10 people coming to dinner are NOT vegetarians. So I'm really tempted to put bacon into everything and just give Laura some chips to munch on. But in the end I'm too nice a person and I'll keep the sides all veggie.
Anyways, the bird. It is going to be off. the. hook. I spent about 1 hr talking about how to cook turkey while I was riding through the berkeley hills with a friend yesterday morning. This chick is already the matriarch of her huge bosnian/texan family, and she regularly has 20 - 40 people over for Thanksgiving. She's tried a lot of things, and has settled on brining. I'm going to use her brining recipe, which calls for a bottle of riesling, mustard seed, coriander, and about 10 other spices. She's hooking me up with a brining bag and the plan is to let willy (that's the turkey's name) chill on my fire escape for a day. Hopefully he won't get mugged.
Other than the bird, stuffing, and gravy, libs and I are going to make creamed onions, green bean casserole, brussel sprouts, collards, glazed sweet potatoes, cornbread, and pecan pie. And maybe persimmon pudding if we get to it. Plus people are bringing things of course. Rationally, I know its going to be hella food, but I'm still worried that there won't be enough. I have no idea why I always think this. Really, I should probably be more worried about the wine situation. I'm hoping people will bring some and I don't know how much I should have on hand. I know Mom does appertifs and pairings and the whole deal.
Other than food, I suppose I need to worry about "the table". In Martha Stewart speak I suppose this means things like place settings, centerpieces or candles. I have a much more basic concern about the "the table". Namely, I don't have one. I have the little one in my kitchen, but I think we'll use that for prep and serving. And I have my desk. But I don't have a table for 10 people. Shit, I don't even have more than four chairs. I suppose I need to address this problem ...
Anyways, lots to do. And I also need to prep a lecture for tuesday and re-do some analyses which should have been done by last friday. I guess I'll be buying frozen pie shells :)
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Raw Kale Caesar-ish Salad
Just made a new raw kale salad based on this 101 cookbooks recipe. I think this is the second or third entry on this blog regarding raw kale salad, and I think that says something (good? strange?) about our diets. I haven't selected kale with my farm share for a long time and had forgotten how good it was! This recipe got me thinking about the different types of kale. It calls for Tuscan or dinosaur kale, which I've never used before. Have you? What's it like? I used regular kale, which seemed to work out fine. In the course of my internet research, I also learned that cold weather and/or frost actually makes kale sweeter. This is why it's so tasty in the late fall/winter. This specimen proved that rule right!
Slice 1 bunch of kale leaves (stems removed) into 1/2" strips.
Whisk together 1/4c parmesean (or pecorino), 3T EVOO, 1/3c lemon juice, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/4t salt, 1/2 minced jalapeno (seeds removed), plus a pinch of black pepper with a fork.
Toss this dressing with the kale as you knead it gently.
Top with coarse whole wheat bread crumbs (~2 thin slices worth), additional parmesean, and 1 capful of EVOO.
I served this with the leftovers of last night's curried squash soup, which is picture below. Yes, today I am actually posting a photo of the food about which I'm blogging, rather than a photo of my cat.
Just kidding--here's a photo of Dan playing Scrabble:
Slice 1 bunch of kale leaves (stems removed) into 1/2" strips.
Whisk together 1/4c parmesean (or pecorino), 3T EVOO, 1/3c lemon juice, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/4t salt, 1/2 minced jalapeno (seeds removed), plus a pinch of black pepper with a fork.
Toss this dressing with the kale as you knead it gently.
Top with coarse whole wheat bread crumbs (~2 thin slices worth), additional parmesean, and 1 capful of EVOO.
I served this with the leftovers of last night's curried squash soup, which is picture below. Yes, today I am actually posting a photo of the food about which I'm blogging, rather than a photo of my cat.
Just kidding--here's a photo of Dan playing Scrabble:
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Curried Butternut Squash Soup
New recipe alert! Tonight I made dinner on a theme of What Is In My Fridge (and About to Go Bad). The result was a delicious curried butternut squash soup. Place the following ingredients in the slow cooker for 6h on high or 10h on low:
1T EVOO
1 onion, chopt
2 garlic cloves, chopt
1/2T minced ginger
1/2T curry powder
2.5c stock
1/2lg butternut squash, peeled & chopt
1t sugar
1/2t salt
~1h before the soup is done, add ~7oz unsweetened coconut milk and 1T lemon juice.
Puree and garnish with cilantro.
I roasted some suspect root veggies on the side. Turns out 400 deg. for 1h cures root veggies of all ills.
This dinner came together with beautiful fall colors--orange squash & sweet potatoes, red beets, yellow potatoes. All these colors are not so beautiful as my dear cat, though, so I will leave you with another adorable photograph:
1T EVOO
1 onion, chopt
2 garlic cloves, chopt
1/2T minced ginger
1/2T curry powder
2.5c stock
1/2lg butternut squash, peeled & chopt
1t sugar
1/2t salt
~1h before the soup is done, add ~7oz unsweetened coconut milk and 1T lemon juice.
Puree and garnish with cilantro.
I roasted some suspect root veggies on the side. Turns out 400 deg. for 1h cures root veggies of all ills.
This dinner came together with beautiful fall colors--orange squash & sweet potatoes, red beets, yellow potatoes. All these colors are not so beautiful as my dear cat, though, so I will leave you with another adorable photograph:
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